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ALCOHOL 

And  the  Human  Race 

RICHMOND  P.  HOBSON 


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Reference  liibxavp 


Alcohol  and  the 
Human  Race 


By 

RICHMOND  PEARSON  HOBSON 
Laie  V.  S.  Navy,  Late  M,  C. 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming    H.   Revell    Company 

London       and       Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York :  1 58  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London :  2 1  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:      75    Princes    Street 


TO 

J 


To 

MY  WIFE 


Foreword 

IN  1908  the  Legislature  of  Alabama,  after 
enacting  a  Prohibition  statute,  submitted 
a  Prohibition  Amendment  to  the  State 
constitution  as  a  referendum  to  be  voted  on  by 
the  people  early  the  following  year. 

I  was  then  a  member  of  Congress  from  that 
State.  My  political  advisers,  in  whose  wisdom 
I  had  confidence,  urged  me  to  come  out  against 
the  Amendment,  as  most  of  the  men  in  public 
life  in  the  State  were  doing,  and  I  had  about 
decided  to  follow  their  advice,  for,  though 
taught  in  childhood  to  be  abstemious,  eighteen 
years  of  life  in  the  United  States  Navy  and  the 
superficial  observation  of  an  average  man  of 
the  world,  had  led  me  to  look  upon  the  liquor 
question  as  a  mere  matter  of  police  regulation 
which  would  be  out  of  place  in  the  organic 
law.  The  thought  that  my  mother,  if  alive, 
would  have  been  for  the  Amendment,  led  me 
to  decide,  before  announcing  myself,  to  make 
an  investigation  as  to  whether  any  issue  of  a 
deep  abiding  nature,  fit  for  incorporation  in 
the  organic  law  of  a  state,  were  involved. 

I  recognized  at  once  that  the  question  was 
wholly  one  of  fact  rather  than  judgment,  and 
that  it  hinged  on  the  actual  properties  of  alco- 

7 


8  FOKEWOKD 

hoi,  a  chemical  compound.    I  therefore  pro- 
ceeded,   with    the    aid    of    the    Librarian    of 
Congress,  to  assemble  all  available  scientific 
information  on  the  subject.     I  was  startled  to 
find,  almost  at  the  outset,  that  alcohol  is  not  a 
product  built  up  of  grain,  grapes  and  other  food 
materials,  but  is  the  toxin  of  yeast  or  ferment 
germs,  which,  after  devouring  the  food  mate- 
rials, excrete  alcohol  as  their  waste  product. 
Though  abstemious  myself,  the  thought  that 
intoxicating  liquors  were  really,  built  up  of 
the  excretions  of  living  organisms  removed  all 
glamour  from  the  cup,  and  produced  a  reaction 
of  loathing.     Soon  I  was  shocked  to  find  that 
this    toxin    causes    degeneracy    in    all    living 
things,  disrupts  the  germ  plasm,  blights  off- 
spring, and,  in  the  end,  entails  sterility  and 
extinction.    I  saw  at  once  that  instead  of  being 
a  mere  matter  of  local  police  regulation  its 
handling  was  the  most  fundamental  and  or- 
ganic question  confronting  society,  involving 
not  only  the  integrity  of  free  institutions,  but 
the  lives  of  nations,  and  the  perpetuity  of  the 
race.     I  could  not  understand  how  my  igno- 
rance had  been  so  dense  regarding  so  important 
a  scientific  matter  since,  at  Annapolis  and  at 
the  Ecole  d'  Application  du  Genie  Maritime, 
I  had  been  trained  for  a  scientific  profession — 
that  of  Naval  Constructor  and  Marine  Engi- 
neer.    After  beginning  the  study  of  alcohol, 
however,   I  never  ceased.    This  book  is   the 
product  of  scientific  investigations  continued 
steadily  from  1908  until  now — investigations  in. 


FOEEWOED  9 

which  I  have  always  sought  only  "the  truth, 
the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth." 

During  the  past  ten  years  I  have  endeavoured 
to  take  my  knowledge  of  this  subject  to  my 
fellow  countrymen,  chiefly  by  the  spoken  word. 
Now  that  democracy  has  conquered  in  its  age- 
long struggle,  and  must  face  the  reconstruction 
of  the  world,  I  am  hoping  and  praying  that  I 
may  be  helpful  in  some  degree  in  carrying 
this  vital  truth  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  through 
the  written  word.  If  the  peoples  of  the  earth 
do  get  this  truth,  a  no-license  world  will  follow 
as  day  follows  night,  democracy  will  endure, 
and  a  new  era  will  dawn  for  the  sobering  world. 

To  those  who  wish  to  examine  original  ex- 
perimental data,  I  would  suggest  the  follow- 
ing: 

First — Publications  of  the  Carnegie  institu- 
tion at  Washington  on  experimental  investiga- 
tions by  Drs.  Benedict  and  Dodge,  on  the 
effect  of  moderate  doses  of  alcohol.  These 
investigations  establish  that  alcohol  is  always 
a  depressant  poison,  no  matter  how  small  the 
quantity  taken,  and  set  at  rest  the  controversy 
over  the  imagined  food  value  of  alcohol,  "  tem- 
perate drinking,"  "the  use  of  light  wine,  of 
beer,  etc." 

Second — Eeports  of  Dr.  Stockard  of  experi- 
ments conducted  at  the  Cornell  Medical  Col- 
lege, as  to  the  effect  of  alcohol  taken  by  mam- 
mals upon  offspring  and  progeny,  published  in 
the  "American  Naturalist,"  and  in  the  Pro- 
ceedings    of    the     Society    of    Experimental 


10  FOEEWOED 

Biology  on  Medicines.  These  experiments 
upon  lower  animals  show  the  disruptive  effect 
of  drinking  upon  the  germ  plasm,  producing 
degeneracy  in  the  offspring,  and  finally  possible 
sterility  and  extinction  in  the  progeny. 

Third — Eeports  of  Dr.  Laitinen  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Helsingfors,  investigations — cover- 
ing thousands  of  families — into  the  effects  of 
drinking  of  parents  upon  their  children,  pub- 
lished in  the  Proceedings  of  International 
Congresses  on  Alcoholism,  especially  the  Con- 
gress of  London,  1909.  These  investigations 
uncover  the  degenerating  effect  of  even  the 
most  temperate  drinking  by  parents  upon 
children,  showing  that  the  general  use  of 
"  light  wine  "  or  "  light  beer "  must  in  time 
bring  about  the  disintegration  of  any  family, 
and  the  decline  and  downfall  of  any  nation. 

To  those  who  wish  to  examine  an  assemblage 
of  experimental  data,  and  the  searching  analy- 
sis of  poisonous  effects  of  alcohol,  I  would  sug- 
gest the  "  Psychology  of  Alcoholism "  by 
George  B.  Cutten. 

The  basic  facts  about  alcohol  are  now  estab- 
lished so  thoroughly  by  the  scientific  world 
that  for  brevity  I  have  omitted  all  my  copious 
bibliography,  and  have  cut  down  the  citations 
of  authorities.  The  question  has  really  passed 
the  controversial  stage — elucidation  and  in- 
terpretation are  now  in  order. 

I  wish  to  express  my  great  indebtedness  to 
my  sister,  Sarah  A.  Hobson,  for  the  patient 
research  work  she  has  done  for  me  at  Eadcliff. 


FOREWORD  11 

Only  an  imperative  demand  for  brevity  in  order 
that  this  book  may  go  on  wings  prevents  the 
placing  of  chapters  prepared  by  her  along  with 
these  chapters  of  my  own. 

E.  P.  H. 


Contents 

PART  I 

Alcohol  and  Individuals 

I.  Alcohol  a  Protoplasm  Poison      .        .      21 

Discovery  of  distillation — Continued  ignorance  of 
alcohol — Scientific  Twilight,  Sunrise  and  Noonday 
— Extensive  investigations  cited  and  their  results 
briefly  noted. 

Chemistry  of  alcohol — Product  of  yeast  germ — Why 
it  is  not  a  food — How  produced — Poison  to  all 
higher  forms  of  life — Hydrocarbon — Chain  series 
— Relation  to  ether  and  chloroform — Effects  on 
Protoplasm — Coagulates  protein — Absorbs  water 
and  oxygen — Lessens  nutrition  and  elimination. 

Alcohol  and  Biology — Cells  organized  into  bodies — 
Cells  constitute  ultimate  tissue  substance — Effects 
on  cells  produce  effects  on  tissues  through  coagu- 
lation, malnutrition  and  deficient  oxidation,  elimi- 
nation and  cell-reproduction  —  Kills  the  germs 
which  excrete  it — Should  have  been  recognized 
as  toxin — Effect  on  low  orders  of  life — on  vege- 
table— animal — man. 

Alcohol  and  Physical  Pathology — Poisons  in  general 
— Slow  recognition  of  alcohol  as  poison — Expulsion 
from  Pharmacopoeia — Alcoholic  pathology  of  Skin 
— of  Nutrition — of  Blood  and  Circulation — of 
other  organs. 

II.  Alcohol  a  Habit-Forming  Drug  .        .      66 

Alcohol  and  the  Nervous  System — Special  affinities 
of  poisons — Alcohol's  affinity — Nervous  system 
fixes  scale  of  life — Nervous  evolution  in  Man — 
Lower  Brain — Upper  Brain — Brain  Cells — More 
highly  organized — Usual  cell  effects  but  more 
marked — Greatest  damage  to  Upper  Brain. 

Alcohol  and  the  Senses — Touch — Sight — Hearing — 
Taste  and  Smell. 

Alcohol  and  Intellect — Memory — Dims  impressions 
— "Weakens  power  to  recall  and  recognize — Latest 

13 


H  CONTENTS 

impressions  destroyed  first — Imagination — Dis- 
organizes and  debases — Destroys  constructive  im- 
agination. 

Thinking — Required  coordination  of  mental  powers 
impaired — Capacity  to  concentrate  lessened — 
Moral  conceptions  and  judgment  go  first. 

Effects  on  Reason — On  Will — Will  requires  Memory, 
Judgment,  Reason,  superlative  nerve  energy — 
Capacity  to  Will  destroyed. 

Alcoholic  Craving — Based  on  motive  of  Exhilaration 
and  motive  of  Oblivion — Universally  present — 
Have  legitimate  answers — Falsely  baited  by  alco- 
hol— Appeals  to  each  in  turn — The  alcohol  habit 
— Each  drink  enhances  drink  motives  and  increas- 
ingly anaesthetizes  opposing  powers — Every  drink 
makes  taker  less  of  a  man. 

III.  Alcohol  the  Specific  Cause  of  De- 

generacy     ......      90 

The  Universe  in  change — Processes  of  building — 
Processes  of  decay — Processes  more  complex  in 
organic  world — In  Vegetable — Animal — Man. 

Protoplasm  the  physical  machinery  of  evolution — 
Highest  forms  of  suffer  most — Physical  fabric  of 
man's  spiritual  evolution  in  Upper  Brain — Build- 
ing processes  there  reversed. 

Alcoholic  emotions  epitomize  gamut  of  alcoholic 
degeneracy — Control  centers  paralyzed — Emotions 
given  rein — Sink  in  scale  as  anaesthesia  progresses 
— Like  effects  over  longer  period  from  continuous 
more  moderate  use. 

Alcohol  and  morals — Insanity — Pauperism. 

Alcoholic  toxicology — Shortening  of  life — Minimum 
fatal  dose — Poisoning  symptoms  and  processes — 
Premature  senility — Mortality  of  drinkers. 

Alcohol  and  offspring — Nature  hostile  to  degeneracy 
— Alcohol  and  germ  plasm — Experiments  of  Dr. 
Stockard — Degeneracy  and  ultimate  sterility — 
Confirmed  by  investigations  among  human  kind. 

IV.  Alcohol  and  the  Human  Life-Cycle 

(Including    Discussion   of    Alcohol's 
Effects  in  Families)    .         .         .         .Ill 

Alcohol  and  the  prenatal  period — Effect  on  germ 
plasm  further  considered — Syphilis  as  a  kindred 
plasm  poison — Alcohol's  relation  to — Sacredness 
of  child  in  embryo — Alcohol's  effect  on. 


CONTENTS  15 

Alcohol  and  the  period  of  minority — Incapacitates 
mothers  for  nursing — Prevents  proper  care  in  in- 
fancy— Infantile  mortality  and — Cause  of  parental 
neglect,  incompetence,  bad  example  and  abuse — 
Adolescent  age — Stops  education — Besets  with 
special  temptations — Rules  out  wholesome  influ- 
ences— Youthful  depravity  and. 

Alcohol  and  maturity — Effects  on  breadwinners — 
On  home-protector  —  Alcohol  and  wedlock  — 
Shortened  period  of  maturity — Blighter  of  old  age 
— Alcohol  and  the  soul. 


PART  II 
Alcohol  and  Society 

V.  General  Principles      .        .        .        .133 

Keying  humanity  to  the  top  of  its  brain — The  law  of 
the  fang  out  of  date — No  surplus  human  life — Race 
approaching  condition  of  a  warm-blooded  organ- 
ism— The  new  Bill  of  Rights — Future  civilization 
will  require  dominance  of  top  of  the  brain — The 
precept  of  the  new  order. 

Inescapable  conflicts — Socialization  of  "  Rights  "  in- 
evitable— How  nature  arms  a  species  against 
menace — In  man  intelligence  and  conscience 
must  aid. 

Applying  the  scientific  method — What  it  is — Illus- 
trated in  Battle  of  Santiago. 

The  great  objective — Nature's  and  Society's  must 
coincide — What  natural  science  reveals  as  to 
man's  true  objective — How  Nature  aids  toward  its 
achievement — All  things  measured  by  how  they 
aid — Anything  that  interferes  is  of  moment  to  the 
whole  race — Nature's  indication  of  probable  social 
effects  of  alcohol — Do  facts  corroborate. 

VI.  Alcohol  and  Nations         .  .        .     146 

Social  integration  and  nations — Higher  attributes  of 
humanity  developed  by  exercise — Large  social 
groupings  the  only  adequate  field  for  their  use — 
The  why  of  nations — Ultimate  integration  of  the 
human  race — Average  character  the  spiritually, 
and  industrial  organization  the  physically,  deter- 
mining factors — Nations  the  highest  social  organ- 
isms yet  achieved. 


16  CONTENTS 

Alcohol  and  national  nutrition — What  national  nu- 
trition includes — Society  built  of  conscious,  not 
unconscious,  units — A  comparatively  new  relation- 
ship— Functioning  of  units  not  yet  fully  established 
or  become  automatic — Man  working  at  his  own 
socialization — Social  nutrition  concerns  food  and 
more — Alcohol  and  food  supplies — Alcohol  and  so- 
cially wasted  labour — Lowered  national  efficiency 
— Waste  of  money — Injury  of  legitimate  businesses 
— The  cloying  of  the  social  body  with  alcoholic 
debris  —  Tax  burdens  —  Sickness  —  Premature 
deaths. 

Alcohol  and  national  exercise — The  activities  which 
preserve  and  develop  a  nation — How  alcohol 
affects  them  in  the  home — The  school — Business 
— Alcohol  an  anti-social  force — Effects  on  public 
self-control  —  Capital  —  Labour — Morality — Poli- 
tics and  government — Life  of  a  nation  not  static  but 
influx — Effects  on  germ  plasm  work  national  con- 
sequences— The  fall  of  nations  explained — Aver- 
age individual  development  of  top-brain  deter- 
mines outcome  of  group  conflicts — Drinking  na- 
tions doomed  to  displacement — Nations  must  sober 
up  or  wither — Race  must  conquer  alcohol  habit  or 
be  forever  toppling  back  into  alcohol-purging 
chaos. 


VII.    Alcohol  and  Civilizations  .        .172 

Fundamental  factor  in  life-histories  of  individuals 
and  nations  apply  to  civilizations — Civilizations 
formerly  dominated  by  one  nation,  now  by  groups 
of  nations — Failure  of  historians  to  study  the  past 
biologically — Such  study  reveals  prime  role  of 
alcohol  in  tragedies  of  civilizations. 

Alcohol  and  the  physical  basis  of  civilizations — Has 
restricted  the  zones  of  civilization — Delayed  con- 
quest of  natural  forces — Makes  natural  seats  of 
civilization  most  perilous — Distillation  has  accel- 
erated rate  of  decay — Cities  as  special  menace — 
Alcohol's  effect  on  naturally  selective  breeding — 
The  enervation  of  alcoholic  diseases. 

Alcohol  and  the  spiritual  structure  of  civilization — 
Built  on  relations  of  men  with  their  fellows — 
Justice  as  a  requisite — Alcohol's  effect  on — Po- 
litical virtue  and  a  free  civilization — Alcohol's 
effect  on — The  alcohol  interests  and  free  civiliza- 
tion in  unescapable  conflict — Peace  as  an  essential 
—Alcohol's   effect  on — Closer  relations  between 


CONTENTS  17 

alcoholized  peoples  can  only  develop  discord- 
Temporary  cessation  of  conflict  not  peace — Only 
hindrances  to  civilization  now  spiritual — Alcohol 
destroys  the  physical  basis  of  the  spiritual  faculties 
— Summarized  statement — Civilization  must  reckon 
with  alcohol. 
Historic  proof — How  the  course  of  empire  advanced 
ahead  of  the  cults  of  dissipation — No  more  new 
lands — Top-brain  development  the  hope  of  the 
world — Cannot  be  achieved  using  alcohol. 

VIII.  The  Only  Cure 192 

Alcohol's  appeals  reviewed — The  motives  of  elation 
and  oblivion — Drug's  power  to  increase  and  in- 
tensify its  appeal — Methods  which  leave  it  freely 
accessible  no  possible  cure — As  true  for  society  as 
for  individuals — Habit,  heredity  and  weakened 
resistance  great  social  factors. 

The  alcohol  supply — Laboratory  processes  difficult- 
Production  by  fermentation  easy — Manufacture 
achieved  early — Capable  of  great  development  at 
low  cost — No  limit  to  its  financial  possibilities — 
Greed  and  the  elements  of  manufacture  every- 
where— Regulation  ridiculous — Society  always 
susceptible  to  attack — Contagious  in  its  spread- 
Disease  is  organic. 

The  Cure — Organic  disease  requires  organic  remedy 
— Combat  the  appeals  and  inhibit  the  supply — 
Truth  about  alcohol  more  potent  than  alcohol's 
appeals  to  the  unenslaved — Must  be  instilled  into 
each  generation — Present-day  alcohol  heredity, 
habit  and  enslavement  make  truth  alone  unequal 
to  task — Inhibition  of  drug  essential — Education 
more  fundamental — Must  precede  and  follow  pro- 
hibition— Effective  prohibition  only  after  educa- 
tion— Full  educational  results  only  after  prohibi- 
tion. 

The  educational  objective — The  instruction  of  all 
the  individuals  of  each  generation. 

Prohibition  of  the  traffic — License  and  regulation 
the  traffic's  aids — Prohibition  the  only  rational  at- 
titude— Must  ultimately  be  complete  in  a  nation — 
In  the  world. 

Past  failures  no  criterion — Elements  of  true  cure  un- 
attainable then — The  truth,  agencies  for  its  dis- 
semination and  motives  which  make  that  truth 
paramount  now  conjoined — Outcome  inevitable — 
"When,  depends  on  those  who  have  learned  the 
truth. 


PART  I 
Alcohol  and  Individuals 


I 

ALCOHOL  A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON 

"Ye  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall 

make  you  free."  — John  8:32. 
"My  people  perish  for  lack  of  knowledge." — 

Hosea  4:6. 
"Wine  is  a  mocker.' * — Proverbs  20:1. 

Scientific  Twilight. 

THE  first  recorded  scientific  discovery 
of  isolated  alcohol  proper  was  that  of 
the  Arabian  chemist,  Albucasis,  who 
discovered  distillation  in  the  twelfth  century. 
Previous  to  the  use  of  distillation,  intoxicating 
liquor  had  never  contained  over  twelve  to  four- 
teen per  cent,  of  alcohol,  because  at  this  concen- 
tration the  toxin  alcohol  kills  the  ferment  germs 
that  produce  it.  The  evaporation  of  the  alcohol, 
like  the  invisible  passing  of  the  spirit  of  man, 
and  the  invisible  movements  of  disembodied 
spirits,  led  to  the  name  "  spirits  "  of  wine  being 
applied  to  the  condensed  distillate.  The  name 
was  similarly  applied  to  the  condensed  distillate 
of  turpentine,  ammonia,  and  other  substances, 
but  when  used  by  itself  the  word  "  spirits  "  to 
this  day  means  alcohol. 

The    powerful,    paralyzing    effect    of    pure 

21 


22      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

alcohol  must  have  become  known  to  this 
Arabian  chemist,  but  he  seems  to  have  kept  it 
as  a  trade  secret,  as  did  those  initiated  who 
followed  him;  and  only  slowly  did  the  manu- 
facture of  distilled  liquors  spread  over  the 
world. 

Chinese  records  indicate  that  distillation  was 
discovered  and  practiced  in  China  as  early  as 
the  tenth  century  b.  c.  The  imperial  edict  of 
1116  b.  c.  indicates  that  "  spirits  "  of  wine  was 
known  even  then. 

The  appearance  of  distilled  liquor,  instead  of 
throwing  light  upon  the  real  nature  of  alcohol, 
as  would  be  natural,  only  served  to  obscure  the 
whole  drink  question.  The  widespread  use  of 
distilled  liquors  during  the  last  two  or  three 
centuries  has  brought  galloping  degeneracy  in 
its  wake,  with  a  deluge  of  excesses  and  drunken- 
ness that  is  hurrying  the  nations  on  to  the  doom 
of  those  nations  which  have  passed  and  are  no 
more. 

Notwithstanding  the  destructive  work  of 
alcohol  through  thousands  of  years  of  history 
before  distillation  was  known,  the  early  scien- 
tific investigators  of  our  day  were  blinded  by 
the  more  glaring  ravages  of  distilled  liquors, 
and  disregarded  the  slower  but  even  more 
deadly,  because  more  general  and  insidious,  use 
of  fermented  liquors  which  produces  vastly 
more  degeneracy,  quantitatively,  than  distilled 
liquors.  Largely  as  a  result  of  this  misconcep- 
tion many  who  are  considered  well-informed 
persons  to-day  still  hold  to  the  idea  that  it  is  all 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  23 

right  to  drink  "  in  moderation."  Many  actually 
believe  that  "  drunkenness  "  is  the  only  ill,  that 
distilled  liquors  are  its  only  source,  and  that 
reform  should  seek  to  eliminate  "  whiskey  "  but 
leave  and  even  encourage  the  moderate  use  of 
beers  and  light  wines. 

Sunrise. 

Scientific  Sunrise  upon  the  Field  of  Alcohol 
may  be  said  to  have  come  with  the  publication 
of  the  pioneer  scientific  pamphlet  entitled,  "An 
Inquiry  into  the  Effect  of  Spirituous  Liquors 
Upon  the  Human  Body,"  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Bush 
of  Philadelphia,  in  1783.  Dr.  Bush  was  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  of  Independence  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  and  through  the  coopera- 
tion of  such  prominent  men  of  that  Congress  as 
Benjamin  Franklin,  General  Putnam,  and  Dr. 
Belknap,  the  Continental  Congress  adopted  a 
strong  resolution  calling  upon  the  various  legis- 
latures immediately  to  pass  laws  the  most  ef- 
fectual for  putting  an  end  to  the  pernicious 
practice  of  distilling  grain.  As  Surgeon  Gen- 
eral of  the  Military  Department  of  the  Bevolu- 
tionary  War,  as  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the 
Philadelphia  Medical  College,  and  as  a  noted 
practitioner  of  his  day,  Dr.  Bush  made  careful 
observations  and  analyses  which  led  him  to  con- 
clude that  distilled  liquors  produce  serious  in- 
jury to  the  human  organism.  It  seems  a  pity 
that  his  observations  did  not  extend  to  fer- 
mented liquors,  because  his  method  was 
thoroushlv  scientific  and  It's  observations  thor- 


24      ALCOHOL  Aim  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

oughly  accurate,  so  much  so  that  his  pamphlet, 
even  to  this  day,  is  an  interesting  authority 
on  the  subject,  coming  to  the  definite  conclusion 
that  spirituous  liquors  undermine  the  health 
and  strength  of  the  human  organism  and  are 
neither  good  for  food  nor  for  medicine.  How- 
ever, Dr.  Eush  never  seems  to  have  suspected 
that  the  basic  substance,  alcohol,  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  ill  effects  of  all  intoxicating  liquor, 
and  must  of  necessity  work  harmfully  in  malt 
and  fermented  drinks  as  well  as  in  distilled 
liquors.  His  famous  pamphlet  even  advised  the 
moderate  use  of  wine  and  beer.  There  are  con- 
scientious and  otherwise  well-informed  men 
and  organs  of  the  press  to-day,  who,  in  temper- 
ance reform,  have  halted  where  Dr.  Eush 
stopped  over  a  hundred  years  ago. 

In  1850  Dr.  William  B.  Carpenter  published, 
both  in  London  and  Philadelphia,  an  essay 
entitled,  "  The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Alcoholic 
Liquors  in  Health  and  Disease,"  which  had  a 
valuable  educational  influence,  but  scientifically 
did  not  advance  any  farther,  if  as  far,  as  Dr. 
Eush. 

It  remained  for  Dr.  Magnus  Huss  of  Sweden 
to  make  the  next  important  step  forward.  He 
originated  the  word  "alcoholism."  Many 
apologists  for  liquor  have  attempted  to  main- 
tain, and  still  attempt  to  maintain,  that  the 
drink  problem  is  confined  to  what  is  designated 
as  alcoholism, — the  result  of  excessive  and  usu- 
ally fatal  drinking.  Dr.  Huss'  book  cites  evi- 
dence proving  conclusively  that  serious  injury 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  25 

results  from  "  moderate  drinking."  This  book 
turned  a  furrow  in  the  scientific  field,  the  deep- 
est furrow  yet  turned,  demonstrating  the  in- 
herently harmful  nature  of  alcohol  in  any  form 
and  any  quantity.1 

Twenty-five  years  later,  Dr.  Benjamin  Ward 
Eichardson  of  London  in  his  "Cantor  Lectures" 
advanced  scientific  data  another  step  and  in- 
trenched his  advanced  position.  His  investiga- 
tions were  long  continued,  careful,  scientific, 
and  conclusive.  He  demonstrated  that  alcohol 
is  an  anaesthetic,  not  a  stimulant,  and  that  its 
action  upon  the  organs  and  tissues,  whether 
taken  in  "  moderation  "  or  in  "  excess,"  whether 
in  the  form  of  fermented,  malt,  or  distilled 
liquor,  is  essentially  that  of  a  poison.  These 
investigations  led  Dr.  Eichardson  himself  to 
become  a  total  abstainer.  They  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  general  adoption  of  total  abstinence 
as  the  rational  policy  toward  drink.  Dr.  Eich- 
ardson may  be  called  the  Father  of  Scientific 
Total  Abstinence. 

Dr.  N.  S.  Davis,  one  of  the  great  practitioners 
of  the  day,  put  forth  in  America  the  pioneer 
teaching  advanced  by  Dr.  Eichardson  in  Eng- 
land, maintaining  that  alcohol  is  harmful  to  the 
human  system  in  any  quantity,  in  health  or 
disease.  The  natural  conservatism  of  the 
medical  profession  long  retarded  the  spread  of 
this  teaching,  but  it  has  finally  come  to  its  own. 
The  Great  Committee  on  the  American  Pharma- 
copoeia in  1915  dropped  liquors  of  all  kinds  from 

1  Alcoholismus  Chronicus.     Stockholm,  1851. 


-26      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

the  list  of  legitimate  medicines.  At  the  June, 
1918,  National  Convention  of  the  American 
Medical  Association,  the  president  of  that  Asso- 
ciation, amid  general  applause,  appealed  to  the 
entire  medical  profession  to  join  in  the  prohibi- 
tion fight  as  the  most  important  means  of  pro- 
moting the  public  health. 

Investigations  of  many  scientific  men  fol- 
lowed those  of  Dr.  Richardson,  all  leading  to 
the  same  conclusion,  that  alcohol,  instead  of 
being  beneficial  and  curative  in  its  effects  as 
medicine,  is  a  dangerous  impediment  to  curative 
processes,  and  causes  a  predisposition  to  con- 
tract disease.  Among  these  investigators  may- 
be mentioned  Dr.  A.  C.  Abbott  of  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania;  Prof.  C.  H.  Hodge  of  Clark 
University ;  Dr.  Reid  Hunt  of  the  U.  S.  Hygienic 
Laboratory;  Dr.  Stockard  of  Cornell  Medical 
College;  Prof.  T.  Laitinen  of  Helsingfors,  Fin- 
land; Drs.  Delearde,  Massart,  Bordet,  and 
Metchnikoff  of  France,  and  others  who  might  be 
named. 

In  confirmation  of  these  general  conclusions, 
a  succession  of  investigations  and  observations 
in  many  parts  of  the  world  completed  the  dem- 
onstration that  alcohol  is  the  main  ally  of  con- 
sumption, pneumonia,  typhoid,  cholera,  sun- 
stroke, and  most  of  the  diseases  of  the  stomach, 
liver,  kidneys,  heart,  blood  vessels,  nerves  and 
brain.  Among  these  investigators  may  be 
mentioned  Drs.  Crothers,  Welch,  and  Chit- 
tenden of  America;  Muirhead,  Horsley,  and 
Woodhead  of  Great  Britain;  Bauderon,  Bruar- 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  27 

del,  Bertillon,  and  Meirnon  of  France;  Weich- 
selbanm  of  Vienna;  Henschen  of  Stockholm; 
Gnttstadt  of  Prussia,  and  Forel  of  Switzerland. 
Another  series  of  investigations  in  the  med- 
ical world  cleverly  demonstrated  that  alcohol  is 
the  principal  cause  of  premature  death.  The 
pioneer  in  this  line  was  F.  G.  P.  Neison,  English 
Actuary,  who  reported  the  results  of  his  investi- 
gations on  "  Mortality  Among  Persons  of  In- 
temperate Habits  "  to  the  Statistical  Society  of 
London  in  1851.  A  committee  of  the  Harveian 
Society  of  London,  appointed  in  1879  to  investi- 
gate the  subject,  reported  in  1882.  Another 
investigation  of  a  similar  character  was  con- 
ducted by  a  committee  of  the  British  Medical 
Association,  1885-86.  The  Danish  Govern- 
mental Temperance  Commission  conducted  a 
similar  investigation.  Switzerland  figures  for 
1891-94  were  reported  by  Dr.  Frank  in  1895. 
In  1901  Swedish  figures  were  reported  by  Dr. 
Ekholm.  E.  L.  Fisk  has  done  similar  work  in 
America.  In  1914  forty-three  life  insurance 
companies  in  America  reported  extensive  in- 
vestigations of  a  similar  nature  through  a  com- 
mittee headed  by  Arthur  Hunter.  An  earlier 
study  is  by  E.  B.  Phelps  in  America  in  1910-11. 
The  general  plan  in  these  investigations  is  to 
average  the  judgment  of  doctors,  with  practical 
experience,  as  to  the  part  played  by  alcohol  as  a 
cause  of  death,  and  the  result  of  all  averages  and 
estimates  known  showed  it  to  be  the  greatest 
single  cause  of  death.  The  most  accurate  and 
significant  revelations  are  those  taken  directly 


28      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

from  life  insurance  companies  and  fraternal  and 
provident  associations^  where  records  are  kept 
separately.  These  show  total  abstainers  to  be 
in  a  class  by  themselves  in  mortality,  in  matters 
of  health  and  longevity.  The  first  life  insurance 
company  to  keep  a  separate  record  for  total 
abstainers  was  the  United  Kingdom  Temperance 
and  General  Provident  Institution,  London, 
which  was  founded  by  total  abstainers  in  1841. 
Other  companies  at  that  time  demanded  higher 
rates  for  total  abstainers  on  the  ground  that 
they  gave  up  the  strengthening  effects  of 
"  strong  drink."  Among  those  following  the 
example  of  the  United  Kingdom  Temperance 
and  General  Provident  Institution  may  be  men- 
tioned the  Sceptre  of  London,  founded  1864,  the 
Scottish  Temperance,  Scottish  Imperial,  British 
Empire  Mutual,  Prudential,  Order  of  Eechabites, 
Odd  Fellows  in  England,  Swedish  Mutual,  New 
England  Mutual,  Security  Mutual  (Bingham- 
ton,  N.  Y. ) ,  Connecticut  Mutual  insurance  com- 
panies. These  results  of  separate  records  of  life 
insurance  companies  are  confirmed  by  sick  bene- 
fit societies  and  official  statistics  and  tables, 
among  which  are  those  of  Leipsic  and  other 
German  statistics,  and  the  Massachusetts  and 
South  Australia  statistics.  The  concensus  of 
these  absolutely  reliable  records  has  startled  the 
scientific  world  by  the  revelation  that  alcohol 
not  only  plays  an  enormous  part  as  a  great 
direct  and  indirect  cause  of  disease  and  pre- 
mature death,  but  may  be  found  to  be  a  greater 
cause  than  all  other  causes  combined,  especially 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  29 

during  the  years  of  man's  greatest  power  and 
effectiveness — twenty  to  fifty. 

Noontide. 

The  Noontide  of  Science  Upon  Alcohol  came 
in  with  the  world  search  for  efficiency,  physical 
and  mental.  In  no  field  perhaps  has  scientific 
investigation,  careful,  rigid,  exact,  brought  so 
surprising  results.  Everywhere  alcohol  is 
revealed  as  the  greatest  cause  of  man's  ineffi- 
ciency in  all  lines  of  endeavour.  This  might 
have  been  inferred  from  the  effects  of  alcohol 
upon  health,  its  relation  to  sickness,  disease,  and 
premature  death.  Direct  investigations  have 
overwhelmed  the  industrial  and  business  world 
with  the  volume  and  conclusiveness  of  their 
records,  until  total  abstinence  is  now  the  aim 
of  armies,  navies,  railroads,  and  other  organiza- 
tions demanding  high  efficiency  from  their  men. 

Germans,  in  the  quest  for  efficiency,  have 
made  exhaustive  investigations  into  the  effect 
of  alcohol  upon  human  capacity  and  efficiency. 
Prof.  Emil  Kraepelin,  of  the  Universities  of 
Munich  and  of  Heidelberg,  is  looked  upon  as 
the  pioneer  investigator  in  this  line.  He  began 
his  work  in  the  early  eighties,  and  in  1892  pub- 
lished the  result  of  careful  investigations, 
demonstrating  the  serious  loss  of  efficiency, 
physical  and  mental,  from  the  use  of  alcohol 
even  in  moderate  quantities.  His  pupils,  Drs. 
Kurz,  Fuerer,  A.  Smith,  and  Aschaffenburg, 
continued  these  investigations  with  similar 
results.     Prof.  S.  Exner,  however,  had  made 


30      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

earlier  investigations  in  the  same  field  in  1873, 
and  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion,  though  the 
results  were  not  generally  known  till  presented 
by  A.  Smith  in  1895. 

Exner's  experiments  were  followed  up  by 
Dietl  and  Vintschgan  in  1876  and  Danillo  in 
1883.  Among  other  noted  German  investiga- 
tors are  Schmiedeberg,  Bunge,  Filehne.  Ex- 
tensive investigations  along  these  lines  were 
also  made  in  Switzerland  by  Professor  Kubin 
and  Dr.  Schnyder;  in  Norway  by  Professor 
Vogt;  in  America  by  the  Bosanoff  brothers. 
Careful,  though  less  extensive,  observations 
tending  to  the  same  conclusions  were  made  by 
scientific  men,  extending  back  to  the  middle  of 
the  last  century.  Among  these  investigators 
may  be  mentioned  Lichterfels,  Frohlich,  Eidge, 
Kramer,  Crothers,  Eeis,  Kerr,  Gustafson,  Par- 
tridge, Schweinitz,  Hyslop,  Lewis,  Thomeuf, 
Jacoby,  Ladd,  Abel,  Billings,  Cutler,  Benedict, 
and  Atwater.  These  studies  covered  the  effect 
of  alcohol  on  the  intellect,  the  memory,  the  will, 
the  emotions  and  the  senses,  including  sight, 
hearing,  smell,  taste,  touch,  muscular  sense  and 
reaction. 

Special  investigations  as  to  the  effect  of 
alcohol  upon  the  efficiency  of  children  have  been 
conducted  by  the  authorities  at  Vienna  through 
Professor  Bayr  and  Dr.  Frohlich;  by  the 
Italian  authorities  through  A.  Schiave  and  Dr. 
Arcelti;  by  the  German  authorities  at  Munich 
by  Hecker  and  also  at  Bonn;  and  by  the  Hun- 
garian authorities  through  Dr.  Doczi.     These 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  31 

all  show  the  same  general  results  as  the  investi- 
gations dealing  with  adults,  though  the  loss  of 
efficiency  is  naturally  more  marked  in  the  young 
for  the  same  proportion  of  alcohol. 

Similar  experiments  have  been  conducted  to 
show  the  effect  of  alcohol  upon  the  vitality  of 
animals,  notably  by  Huss  and  by  Hodge.  These 
led  to  the  same  general  conclusions. 

Investigations  into  the  causes  of  industrial 
accidents,  inaugurated  by  employers  and  acci- 
dent insurance  companies,  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  alcohol,  in  lowering  the  efficiency  of  opera- 
tives, is  the  principal  cause  of  accidents. 
Prominent  among  these  investigations  are  those 
of  Zurich,  Switzerland,  conducted  by  the  Build- 
ing Trades  Club,  those  at  Leipsic  by  the  Sick 
Benefit  Club,  those  at  Volklingen,  Germany, 
among  the  steel  workers. 

The  same  conclusion  of  impairment  of  vigour 
and  loss  of  efficiency  has  been  reached  in  all 
lines  of  athletics.  There  is  scarcely  a  military 
or  naval  service  in  the  world  where  tests  and 
observations  have  not  been  made,  all  showing 
the  heavy  toll  of  inefficiency  that  alcohol  in- 
variably levies  in  the  numbers  incapacitated  for 
service,  in  rejections  at  enlistment,  in  the  time 
spent  on  the  sick  list,  in  lack  of  endurance  on 
the  march,  in  loss  of  skill  and  precision  in 
marksmanship,  and  in  lapses  of  discipline.  In- 
vestigation showed  drink  to  be  the  chief  cause 
of  inefficiency  in  the  Kussian  Army  in  the  war 
with  Japan,  and  in  the  British  Army  in  the 
Boer  War.     These  investigations  in  the  latter 


32      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

case  were  tlie  principal  cause  of  a  new  awaken- 
ing, first  in  England,  then  in  other  countries. 
The  governments  of  Europe,  sobered  by  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  great  war,  are  all  seeking 
to  reduce  as  fast  as  possible  the  use  of  liquor  in 
armies  and  fleets,  and  ultimately  among  all  the 
people. 

Another  line  of  scientific  investigation  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  serious  loss  of  efficiency 
in  productive  industries,  and  the  immediate 
general  loss  of  national  efficiency,  are  but  sur- 
face manifestations  of  a  deeper  organic  disin- 
tegration that  alcohol  produces  in  the  reproduc- 
tion of  life  itself,  which  threatens  the  very 
survival  of  nations  and  endangers  the  progress 
of  the  human  race.  Prof.  Kudolph  Demme,  of 
Berne,  Switzerland,  head  of  the  Jenner  Hos- 
pital for  Children,  was  an  early  investigator  into 
the  effect  of  alcohol  upon  offspring.  For  over 
ten  years — 1878-89 — he  conducted  investiga- 
tions which  showed  that  intemperate  drink- 
ing by  both  parents  impairs  the  integrity, 
especially  as  to  the  nervous  system,  of  the 
child  unborn.  Prof.  Taav  Laitinen  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Helsingfors,  Finland,  conducted  the 
most  extensive  investigations  in  this  line,  be- 
ginning in  1903,  in  which  he  studied  over  17,000 
children.  While  he  dealt  with  moderate-drink- 
ing parents,  his  investigations  led  to  the  same 
conclusion  as  did  those  of  Demme. 

Prof.  Gustav  von  Bunge,  of  Basel,  Switzer- 
land, made  investigations  involving  various 
degrees    of    drinking    by   the    parents,    which 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  33 

showed  disastrous  results,  further  indicating 
that  the  degree  of  blight  upon  the  offspring 
varied  with  the  degree  of  the  drinking  by  par- 
ents. 

Dr.  W.  C.  Sullivan,  Medical  Inspector  of 
Prisons  in  England,  made  investigations  into 
the  effect  upon  offspring  of  the  drinking  on  the 
part  of  the  mother  only.  Invariable  results  of 
injury  to  offspring  were  again  demonstrated. 

Investigations  confirming  the  correctness  of 
these  general  conclusions  have  been  made  by 
Dr.  Bourneville,  Bicetre,  France;  Dr.  W.  A. 
Potts,  Birmingham,  England,  1908;  Dr.  Ber- 
th olet  of  Lausanne,  Switzerland,  1911 ;  Dr.  Josef 
Schweighofer,  Salzburg,  Austria,  1912;  and 
many  others.  Drs.  Hartman  and  D.  von  Bez- 
zola  of  Switzerland  found  that  wine  harvest  and 
other  drinking  festivals  were  attended  by  con- 
ception of  an  increased  number  of  mentally  de- 
fective children. 

Dr.  Bertholet's  investigations,  covering  a 
great  many  autopsies,  showed  that  alcohol 
made  destructive  attack  upon  the  glands  of  re- 
production in  men.  Drs.  Arlitt  and  Wells, 
experimenting  on  animals,  found  the  same  re- 
sults. 

Experiments  upon  animals  show  the  same 
destructive  results  produced  upon  the  offspring 
of  parents  taking  alcohol.  Dr.  Laitinen  was  a 
pioneer  in  this  field,  with  elaborate  experiments 
on  animals, — rabbits  and  guinea  pigs  and  other 
animals.  Professor  Hodge  of  Clark  University, 
Worcester,  Mass.,  conducted  extensive  experi- 


34      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  KACE 

ments  on  dogs  and  cats  with  the  same  general 
results.  Prof.  W.  S.  Hall  of  Northwestern 
University,  Chicago,  found  similar  results  in 
similar  experiments.1 

The  most  exhaustive  experiments  in  this  line 
are  those  still  being  conducted  with  guinea  pigs 
at  the  Cornell  Medical  College  in  New  York 
City  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Stockard.  Al- 
ready more  than  a  thousand  animals  have  been 
experimented  with,  extending  to  the  seventh 
generation.  These  experiments  show  the  cor- 
rectness of  less  extensive  experiments  formerly 
made  in  other  places.  In  addition,  they  bring 
out  most  startling  results  that  appear  in  the 
third,  fourth  and  later  generations.  For  in- 
stance, if  one  parent  is  an  alcoholic,  no  matter 
if  all  the  rest  of  the  ancestry  is  free  from  the 
taint,  nevertheless  the  family  may  become 
sterile  and  extinct  with  the  fourth  generation. 

The  most  scientific  investigations  thus  far 
conducted  in  any  line  are  those  made  by  the 
Carnegie  Nutrition  Laboratory  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Dr.  Benedict.  In  these  investigations 
instruments  of  greater  precision  than  heretofore 
available  and  methods  heretofore  found  impos- 
sible for  lack  of  plant  and  resources  were  freely 
used.  Dr.  Benedict  and  his  collaborators  for- 
merly thought  that  alcohol  in  small  quantities 
could  be  utilized  by  the  system  and  serve  as  a 
food.      These    investigations    showed    conclu- 

JThe  International  Congress  on  Alcoholism  1909  and 
1913.  Works  of  Lancereaux,  Simonds,  Weichselbaum, 
Corabemale,  Stockard,  Popanaculaoci. 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  35 

sively,  however,  that  alcohol  is  always  a  nar- 
cotic poison.1 

They  brought  out  the  unsuspected  quick  effect 
of  even  small  quantities  of  alcohol  upon  the  re- 
flexes. We  now  know  that  numberless  accidents 
have  been  due  to  slow  reflex  action  of  men  in 
shops,  and  like  reflex  slowness  by  men  driving 
automobiles — men  of  the  most  "  temperate " 
drinking,  men  never  suspected  of  being  under 
the  "influence "  of  liquor.  These  exact  and  con- 
clusive experiments  must  set  at  rest  all  question 
as  to  the  inherently  poisonous  nature  of  alcohol. 

Powerful  vested  interests,  with  vast  re- 
sources, have  exerted  stupendous  influences  to 
hamper  the  march  of  scientific  knowledge  about 
alcohol,  and  especially  to  prevent  its  dissemi- 
nation among  the  masses.  They  have  cultivated 
the  ancient  beliefs,  derived  from  temporary 
sensations  and  misunderstood  observations,  that 
alcoholic  drinks  were  valuable  for  food,  for 
stimulation,  for  medicine.  They  have  promoted 
laws  facilitating  the  procuring  of  drink  by  the 
people,  granting  ofttimes  free  distribution  to 
government  employees,  soldiers,  and  sailors. 

Naturally  the  first  public  action  taken,  action 
that  is  even  now  advocated  by  some  not  yet  in- 
formed, was  that  of  regulation.  Subsequent 
steps  have  come  in  rapid  succession,  the  sci- 
entific world  laying  before  the  people  at  large 
the  terrible  truth  that  all  alcohol  is  an  insidious 

1  Benedict  and  Dodge,  "The  Psychological  Effects  of 
Alcohol."  Benedict  in  Journal  American  Medical  Asso- 
ciation, 1916. 


36      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

poison  of  a  deadly  nature,  bringing  disease, 
premature  death,  blighting  of  offspring,  and, 
through  widespread  use,  national  declines  and 
downfalls.  In  full  light  of  the  truth  as  it  may 
now  be  known  no  sacrifice  is  too  great  for  any 
nation  to  make  to  become  sober,  to  bring  about 
total  abstinence  by  its  people  and  the  complete 
destruction  of  the  beverage  liquor  traffic  within 
its  borders. 

Out  of  this  vast  field  of  scientific  research, 
respecting  which  the  vested  interests  of  liquor 
have  vainly  tried  to  produce  confusion  and  mis- 
understanding, there  stand  forth  three  simple 
findings  and  conclusions  of  modern  science 
which  may  be  considered  as  fully  established  as 
the  law  of  gravitation.  First,  alcohol  is  a 
protoplasm  poison;  second,  alcohol  is  a  nar- 
cotic, habit-forming  drug;  third,  alcohol  is  a 
specific  cause  of  degeneracy,  a  disruptive  agent 
in  the  life  and  reproduction  of  individual  man 
and  in  the  order  of  society.  Men  may  differ  in 
opinion  as  to  matters  of  judgment,  but  every 
intelligent  and  honourable  man  will  wish  to 
know  the  truth  in  matters  of  fact  settled  by 
science.  The  simple  conclusion  is  that  the 
nations  of  to-day  must  become  sober  or  perish 
as  have  the  nations  of  the  past.  The  human 
race  must  become  sober  or  suffer  degeneracy 
and  final  extinction. 

Chemistry  of  Alcohol. 

Alcohol,  the  Toxin  of  the  Ferment  Fungus. 

Alcohol,  as  a  chemical  derivative  of  carbon, 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  37 

belongs  to  the  domain  of  organic  chemistry, 
called  organic  because  these  derivatives  are 
usually  associated  with  organic  or  life  processes 
in  plants  and  animals. 

The  life  processes  that  produce  alcohol  are 
those  of  the  yeast  germ,  which  belongs  to  the 
plant  kingdom,  the  fungi  subdivision.  The 
distinctive  characteristic  of  the  fungi  is  that 
they  lack  chlorophyl,  the  green  colouring  sub- 
stance in  other  plants  by  virtue  of  which,  under 
the  action  of  sunlight,  they  seize  lower  carbon 
and  hydrogen  substances  in  the  air  and  from 
them  build  up  higher  products  suitable  for 
food.  The  fungi,  on  the  contrary,  feed  upon 
higher  products,  as  animals  do.  They  cannot, 
however,  reach  food  materials  intact.  The 
coating  produced  by  nature  is  proof  against 
such  attacks.  These  take  place  when  fruits, 
grains,  and  other  food  materials  have  been 
damaged,  and  the  attack  of  fungi  is  essentially 
a  process  of  decay  and  dissolution.  In  breaking 
up  the  higher  food  substance,  the  fungi  throw 
off  the  lower,  with  products  known  as  toxins. 

The  ferment  fungus  feeds  upon  a  higher 
sugary  food  product  known  as  dextrose,  glucose, 
or  grape  sugar,  and  breaks  it  down  into  two 
lower  waste  products,  or  toxins,  one  a  gas,  the 
other  a  liquid;  the  energy  liberated  by  the 
process  supplying  the  life  energy  of  the  fungus. 
The  gas  is  a  well-known  toxin  poison,  carbon 
dioxide,  which  in  escaping  causes  the  bubbling 
in  fermentation.  The  liquid  toxin  is  alcohol 
which  remains,  and  begins  to  attack  the  fungi 


38      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

that  produced  it.  As  a  result,  the  fermenta- 
tion slows  down  steadily  until  the  amount  of 
the  poison  reaches  twelve  to  fourteen  per  cent, 
of  the  solution,  when  fermentation,  the  life 
process  of  the  fungi,  ceases  altogether. 

The  formula  for  the  production  of  alcohol  by 
the  ferment  fungus  is  as  follows: 

C6H1206  +  Yeast  =    2  C2H5OH  +  2  C02 

(dextrose)  (life  processes)      (alcohol)     (carbon-dioxide) 

Thus,  one  molecule  of  grape  sugar  (dextrose, 
or  glucose),  entering  as  food  into  the  body  of 
the  ferment  (or  yeast)  fungus,  is  broken  up 
into  two  molecules  of  alcohol,  the  liquid  toxin, 
and  two  molecules  of  carbon  dioxide,  the  gas 
toxin. 

Food  Controversy  Settled. 

The  moment  the  fact  was  established  that 
alcohol  is  the  toxin  of  a  fungus,  that  moment  the 
old  controversy  as  to  whether  alcohol  is  a  food 
was  definitely  settled.  Investigations  with 
toxins  of  all  kinds,  from  those^  of  high  orders  of 
life,  like  man,  down  to  those  of  micro-organisms, 
like  the  consumption  germ,  the  diphtheria  bacil- 
lus, have  brought  out  a  general  law  that  governs 
the  action  of  all  toxins,  namely:  the  toxin  of 
one  form  of  life  is  a  poison  to  the  form  of  life 
that  produced  it,  and  a  poison  to  all  forms  of 
life  of  a  higher  order. 

Since  the  ferment  fungus  is  a  single  cell  germ, 
the  lowest  form  of  life  known  except  such  as 
the  vinegar  germ,  its  toxin  alcohol  will  be  found 
a  poison  to  all  higher  forms  of  life,  higher  plants 
as  well  as  all  animals,  and  of  course  to  the  most 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  39 

delicately  organized  of  all,  man,  with  his  won- 
derfully developed  nervous  system. 

Alcohol  is  a  chemical  compound,  one  of  the 
dangerous  derivatives  of  the  hydrocarbons,  a 
clan  which  includes  most  of  the  poisons  known 
to  man.  It  belongs  to  the  chain  series,  and  is 
one  of  the  alcohol-chloroform  group  derived 
from  methane.  Its  chemical  formula  is  usually 
written  C2H5OH,  the  second  member  of  a  re- 
markable family  known  as  the  alcohol  family. 
The  other  members  are  interesting,  some  of 
them  very  interesting,  but  the  second  member  of 
the  group  is  such  a  prodigy  and  has  ruled  over 
mankind  so  long  that  he  has  taken  the  family 
name  to  himself,  the  other  members  passing  in 
the  world  at  large  with  other  names  or  dis- 
tinguished by  given  names. 

All  the  members  of  the  alcohol  family  are 
sired  by  the  hydrocarbon  methane,  CH4,  the 
dangerous,  poisonous  gas  known  among  miners 
as  fire-damp,  and  among  people  at  large  as 
marsh-gas,  which  is  composed  of  one  atom  of 
carbon  and  four  atoms  of  hydrogen.  The  fam- 
ily is  mothered  by  hydroxy!,  OH,  one  atom  of 
oxygen  and  one  atom  of  hydrogen.  When 
hydroxyl,  OH,  detaches  one  atom  of  hydrogen 
from  methane,  CH4,  and  takes  its  place,  the 
result,  CH3.OH,  is  the  first-born  of  the  alcohol 
family,  known  as  methyl-alcohol.  Methyl  goes 
about  in  overalls,  under  the  common  name  of 
"  wood  alcohol,"  a  dangerous  enough  citizen  if 
trifled  with,  but  content  to  stay  in  his  place  and 
serve  the  arts.     He  is  outspoken  and  honest, 


40      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

never  pretending  that  he  is  good  to  drink  nor, 
because  he  can  burn,  that  he  is  a  food. 

The  chain  in  the  alcohol  family  has  for  its 
link  CH2.  Inserting  this  link  before  hydroxyl 
in  methyl-alcohol  we  have  as  a  result  CH3.  CH2. 
OH  (or,  as  simplified  C2H5OH),  the  second 
of  the  alcohol  family,  known  as  ethyl-alcohol, 
or  popularly  simply  as  alcohol,  King  Alcohol, 
the  arch-usurper  and  deceiver  of  the  universe, 
really  poisoning  more  people  than  wood-alcohol, 
yet  pretending  to  be  food  and  to  be  the  source 
of  strength  and  joy  to  man. 

When  another  link,  CH2,  is  inserted  before 
hydroxyl  in  ethyl-alcohol  the  result,  CH3.  CH2. 
CH2.  OH,  is  the  third  member  of  the  alcohol 
family,  propyl-alcohol. 

Similarly  by  the  insertion  of  another  link  we 
have  the  fourth  member  of  the  family,  butyl- 
alcohol.  Next  follows  amyl-alcohol,  commonly 
known  as  fusel-oil,  though  not  itself  alone  re- 
sponsible for  the  conduct  of  fusel-oil.  Next 
comes  hexyl-alcohol,  etc. 

It  is  easy  to  recognize  the  members  of  this 
remarkable  family.  They  all  show  their  hydro- 
carbon ancestry,  founded  by  the  "fatty" 
branch,  CH3,  one  atom  of  carbon  and  three 
atoms  of  hydrogen,  while  hydroxyl,  OH,  one 
atom  of  oxygen  and  one  atom  of  hydrogen, 
breeds  true  in  them  all. 

Hydroxyl  is  liable  to  drop  the  hydrogen  atom 
and  take  up  in  its  place  other  hydrocarbon 
derivatives,  also  derivatives  of  chlorine, 
bromine,  etc.,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  liable 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  41 

to  drop  out  entirely,  new  complicating  chemical 
substances  taking  its  place.  For  instance,  by 
coaxing  ethyl-alcohol,  the  alcohol  in  liquor, 
with  a  little  sulphuric  acid  simply  to  extract 
water  from  it,  H20,  the  hydrocarbon  doubles  up 
and  produces  ethyl-ether,  C2H5OC2H5,  the 
anaesthetic  poison  known  as  ether,  one  molecule 
of  which  is  nothing  more  than  two  molecules  of 
alcohol  less  one  molecule  of  water. 

Again,  by  treating  alcohol  with  bleaching 
powder  through  a  double  reaction,  we  have 
chloroform,  CHC13,  one  atom  of  carbon,  one 
atom  of  hydrogen,  three  atoms  of  chlorine. 

Hydroxyl  and  hydrocarbons  are  sometimes 
found  in  different  combinations,  as,  for  in- 
stance, by  adding  more  carbon,  leaving  the  rest 
the  same  as  in  alcohol,  making  the  formula, 
C6H5OH,  we  have  carbolic  acid. 

Sometimes  we  find  nitrogen  linked  up  with 
hydrocarbon  derivatives  like  chlorine,  without 
hydroxyl,  and  with  varied  rearrangements  of 
carbon,  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  as,  for  instance, 
in  the  formula,  HON,  which  is  prussic  acid. 

In  similar  manner  we  recognize  the  analogy 
between  the  higher  members  of  the  alcohol 
family  and  the  opium  derivatives,  morphine, 
Ci7H1903N,  and  its  further  derivatives,  cocaine, 
Ci7H2104N?  and  strychnine,  C2iH2202N2,  and 
heroine,  C2iH2303lSr,  etc. 

Alcohol  and  Protoplasm. 

It  is  strange,  considering  the  close  family 
relationship  of  alcohol  to  nearly  all  of  the 


42      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

deadly  poisons,  many  of  them  well  known,  that 
mankind  has  not  sooner  been  put  on  guard 
against  its  true  nature.  This  is  because  its 
ordinary  production  from  grapes,  grain,  and 
other  food  materials  led  mankind  falsely  to 
conclude  that  it  was  something  naturally 
present  in  these  foods,  and  so  must  have  a  right- 
ful beverage  use.  On  this  basis  alcohol  accom- 
plished a  world-wide  career  of  deceit  and  illu- 
sion generations  before  the  science  of  chemistry 
was  founded,  and  that  science  has  had  to  com- 
bat and  overcome  the  false  teachings  of  ages. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  all  the  complex 
chemical  reactions  of  this  poisonous  tribe  to 
understand  their  fundamentally  destructive 
effect  upon  the  protoplasm  of  living  tissue  and 
upon  the  delicate  processes  necessary  to  main- 
tain life. 

Protoplasm  is  composed  of  proteins,  water, 
and  a  little  salt.  Its  life  processes  require  a 
regular  supply  of  food  and  oxygen  and  a  regular 
elimination  of  waste  products. 

Some  poisons  attack  the  protoplasm  itself, 
some  interfere  with  the  life  processes,  some, 
such  as  the  protoplasm  poisons,  alcohol,  chloro- 
form, carbolic  acid  and  prussic  acid,  have  both 
effects.  It  is  easy  to  note  a  hardening  effect 
when  carbolic  acid  or  alcohol  comes  in  contact 
with  exposed  protoplasm,  like  the  white  of  an 
egg,  or  the  eye,  or  the  mucous  membrane  of  the 
tongue.  This  is  due  to  the  coagulation  of  the 
proteins  of  the  protoplasm  itself,  as  well  as  the 
extraction  of  water. 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  43 

The  attack  of  these  poisons  upon  the  struc- 
ture of  the  protoplasm  is  general,  but  its  inten- 
sity varies  from  one  part  to  the  other,  thus  for 
alcohol,  chloroform,  and  most  of  their  family 
groups,  in  fact,  for  most  of  the  protoplasm 
poisons,  the  severest  attack  is  upon  the  proto- 
plasm of  the  central  nervous  system  of  the 
brain. 

The  quickest  and  most  violent  derangement 
of  protoplasm  itself  is  in  the  case  of  prussic 
acid,  where  the  poison  combines  directly  with 
the  proteins  and  produces  sulphocyanides, 
among  other  waste  products. 

The  destructive  effect  of  poison  upon  proto- 
plasm can  be  easily  understood  by  taking  ac- 
count of  the  general  composition  of  proteins, 
about  one-half  being  carbon,  one-fifth  oxygen, 
one-sixth  nitrogen,  one-fifteenth  hydrogen,  and 
a  little  sulphur.  In  some  protoplasm  phos- 
phorus enters,  being  highest — about  five  and 
one-half  per  cent. — in  nucleo-protein,  the  prin- 
cipal constituent  of  the  central  nuclei  of  living 
cells.  These  proteins  are  especially  prominent 
in  the  central  nervous  system,  particularly  the 
brain. 

Other  proteins  known  as  chromo-proteins, 
contain  a  little  iron,  like  haemoglobin,  the  dye- 
stuff  of  the  red  blood  cells,  the  most  important, 
forming  as  it  does  a  quick,  loose  combination 
with  the  oxygen  in  the  lungs,  constituting  thus 
the  carrier  of  oxygen  as  the  circulation  reaches 
all  the  cells. 

As  pointed  out  above,  water  is  as  vital  to  the 


44      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

structure  of  protoplasm  as  to  its  life  processes. 
Some  poisons,  like  alcoliol  and  the  mineral 
acids,  such  as  nitric  acid,  vitriol,  etc.,  have  a 
thirst  for  water,  and  produce  a  parching  effect 
upon  protoplasm  by  literally  sucking  out  its 
water.  When  these  corrosive  acids  are  concen- 
trated the  effect  becomes  evident  and  even  vio- 
lent, the  protoplasm  and  carbohydrates  being 
literally  charred.  The  general  effect  of  alcohol 
is  the  same,  though  not  so  violent.  It  is  not 
difficult  thus  to  understand  how  "  drink  "  pro- 
duces "thirst." 

Some  of  the  poisons,  such  as  prussic  acid  and 
alcohol,  have  an  affinity  for  oxygen.  They  ex- 
tract oxygen  from  the  proteins  of  the  proto- 
plasm as  well  as  from  the  red  blood  cells,  the 
vehicles  of  supply.  Alcohol  combines  with 
oxygen  to  form  carbon  dioxide,  acetic  acid,  and 
other  lower  products.  The  clouding  effect  that 
takes  place  in  the  transparent  protoplasm  of  a 
living  cell  when  attacked  by  alcohol  is  not 
thoroughly  understood,  especially  the  chemical 
reactions,  but  no  doubt  is  due,  in  part  at  least, 
to  the  essential  oxygen  being  extracted  from  the 
structure  along  with  the  sucking  out  of  water. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  further  the 
chemical  reactions  to  understand  how  funda- 
mentally deranging  and  ultimately  disastrous 
alcohol  must  be  to  the  structure  of  the  myriad 
cells  of  the  body. 

The  destructive  effect  of  most  poisons,  espe- 
cially the  organic  poisons  to  which  alcohol  be- 
longs, is  not  limited  to  the  attack  upon  the 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  45 

structure  of  the  living  cells,  but  is  twofold  and 
extends  to  a  derangement  of  the  necessary  life 
processes  as  well.  Alcohol  and,  indeed,  prac- 
tically all  the  protoplasm  poisons  interfere  with 
the  nutrition  of  the  cells.  The  injury  to  the 
structure  of  the  cells  lowers  their  power  of 
assimilation;  thus  injury  to  the  heart,  blood 
and  lymph  vessels  reduces  the  nutritive  value  of 
the  blood  itself  and  the  lymph;  similar  derange- 
ment and  effect  come  from  the  attack  upon  the 
alimentary  organs,  juices,  and  processes  of 
digestion.  Nutrition,  including  assimilation, 
excretion,  as  well  as  reproduction,  are  thus  all 
deranged  by  the  intimate  chemical  action  of  the 
alcohol  poison. 

Alcohol  and  Biology. 

As  a  nation  is  made  up  of  a  large  number  of 
living  individuals,  so  the  body  is  made  up  of 
a  large  number  of  minute  living  particles  called 
cells,  already  referred  to  above.  The  citizens 
of  a  country  are  engaged  in  varied  pursuits — 
some  in  the  work  of  production,  in  field,  forest, 
mine,  factory ;  some  in  the  work  of  distribution, 
in  transportation,  in  warehouse,  store,  bank; 
some  in  the  work  of  regulation,  in  legislative 
halls,  on  the  bench,  in  the  executive  chair ;  some 
in  the  work  of  protection,  soldiers,  sailors,  doc- 
tors, teachers,  preachers.  Likewise  in  the  body 
some  cells  are  working  on  production, — mouth, 
stomach,  intestines,  lungs,  supplying  food, 
water,  air ;  some  are  engaged  in  distribution  of 
supplies    and    elimination    of    waste, — heart, 


46      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

blood,  lymph,  lungs,  liver,  kidneys,  skin;  some 
perform  the  office  of  regulation, — brain,  spinal 
cord,  nerves ;  some  are  occupied  in  protection, — 
white  blood  corpuscles,  anti-bodies,  skin,  bone, 
muscle.  In  the  body  there  are  also  cells  to 
which  are  entrusted  reproduction  of  the  species. 

In  the  nation  each  citizen  must  carry  on  his 
own  individual  life.  There  is  birth,  growth, 
reproduction,  necessitating  food,  air,  water, 
elimination  of  waste.  So  must  each  cell  in  the 
body  carry  on  its  individual  life  through  similar 
processes.  As  the  vigour  and  welfare  of  a  nation 
depend  fundamentally  on  the  vitality  and  effi- 
ciency and  cooperation  of  its  citizens,  so  the 
health  and  life  of  the  body  depend  upon  the 
vitality,  efficiency  and  cooperation  of  its  myriad 
cells. 

The  cells  of  the  human  body  are  of  many 
varieties,  having  many  special  characteristics 
and  functions.  All  of  them  are  made  up  of 
protoplasm,  as  mentioned  above,  in  each  of 
which  there  is  a  dense  central  nucleus  sur- 
rounded by  opaque  jelly.  Upon  the  integrity  of 
the  nucleus  depends  the  life  and  reproduction 
of  the  cell. 

In  the  lowest  form  of  life,  as  in  bacteria,  con- 
sisting of  only  a  few  cells,  in  some  cases  of  only 
a  single  cell,  as  in  the  amoeba,  it  is  possible  with 
the  microscope  to  watch  the  life  processes  in 
full  operation.  If  we  examine  a  drop  of  stag- 
nant water  we  clearly  see  the  single  cell  amoeba 
moving  around  gathering  and  sucking  in  food 
and  air  and  throwing  out  waste  products.  After 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  47 

a  while  we  see  the  nucleus  divide  into  two  parts, 
the  surrounding  jelly  closing  in  between  the 
parts.  Then  the  cell  itself  divides  into  two 
parts,  each  a  complete  independent  cell  body 
that  starts  upon  its  own  similar  life  history. 
In  some  cases,  as  in  the  case  of  the  yeast  or 
ferment  germ,  the  mother  cell  produces  many 
new  cells  at  a  time  instead  of  simply  dividing 
in  two,  through  a  process  popularly  called 
"  budding." 

As  previously  pointed  out,  the  various  ele- 
mental cells  of  any  living  thing  are  of  absolutely 
vital  importance,  lying  at  the  foundation  and 
perpetuity  of  all  life,  plant  and  animal.  It  is 
well  enough  at  this  point  to  have  a  more  definite 
knowledge  of  the  protoplasm  out  of  which  all 
cells  are  constructed,  especially  the  protein  con- 
stituents. All  proteins  are  hydrocarbon  deriva- 
tives of  nitrogen  with  a  trace  of  sulphur. 
While  many  in  variety  they  differ  but  slightly 
in  chemical  composition,  which  may  be  taken 
approximately  to  be  the  following :  53%  carbon ; 
22y2%  oxygen;  l§y2%  nitrogen;  7%  hydrogen. 

As  previously  pointed  out,  alcohol  along  with 
certain  other  poisons  hardens  or  coagulates  pro- 
tein. For  instance,  it  will  cook  an  egg,  and  an 
egg  thus  cooked  can  never  be  restored ;  especially 
is  it  unfitted  for  reproduction.  It  also  has  been 
pointed  out  how  alcohol  and  certain  other  poi- 
sons suck  up  the  water  from  the  elemental 
protoplasm  and  altogether  injure  not  only 
the  substance  but  interfere  with  the  life  proc- 
esses of  the  elemental  cells.     Bearing  this  in 


48      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

mind  we  can  readily  get  a  realization  of  the 
manifold  forms  of  injury  to  the  functions  of  the 
body  itself,  such  as  breathing,  nutrition,  elimi- 
nation and  reproduction.  Breathing  is  inter- 
fered with  both  by  the  injury  to  the  protoplasm, 
in  the  cells  themselves,  and  by  the  reduction  of 
the  supply  of  oxygen  delivered  by  the  blood, 
the  power  of  the  red  blood  cells  to  absorb  oxygen 
from  the  lungs  being  reduced  and  the  facility  of 
delivering  it  to  the  cells  likewise  reduced,  and 
during  the  process  of  delivery  the  alcohol  itself 
appropriating  part  of  the  oxygen.  In  addition, 
the  velocity  and  regularity  in  transportation  is 
affected  by  reducing  the  fluidity  of  the  blood 
through  drawing  water  from  its  plasma  and 
by  disturbing  the  equilibrium  and  regulation  of 
the  circulation. 

The  imperfect  oxidation  of  fats  and  starches 
is  one  of  the  first  injuries  to  manifest  itself, 
gradually  causing  an  accumulation  of  particles 
of  these  substances  in  organs  and  tissues,  pro- 
ducing the  dangerous  condition  of  fatty  de- 
generation. It  is  not  necessary  to  proceed  in 
similar  way  to  describe  the  functions  of  nutri- 
tion and  excretion  of  the  elemental  cells  to 
realize  the  general  fundamental  derangement 
this  deadly  poison  produces  in  the  human  or- 
ganism in  all  its  life  processes,  whether  in  the 
cells  themselves,  in  the  organs,  tissues,  or  in  the 
whole  body  itself. 

The  fact  that  some  of  the  alcohol  appropriates 
part  of  the  oxygen  of  the  blood  and  in  burning 
produces  necessarily  a  proportionate  amount  of 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  49 

heat,  led  early  investigators  and  latter-day 
apologists  for  liquor  to  maintain  that  alcohol 
therefore  is  a  food.  By  the  same  reasoning, 
chloroform,  strychnine,  prussic  acid,  and  other 
poisons,  would  be  foods,  as  also  would  be  the 
waste  products  of  the  system  like  uric  acid  that 
partly  burns  before  elimination. 

In  like  manner,  some  have  held  that  alcohol 
through  its  own  burning  spares  the  burning  of 
food  tissue.  It  does  reduce  injuriously  the 
processes  of  nutrition  of  the  cells  and  does  tend 
to  the  accumulation  in  an  unhealthy  way  of 
fats,  but  such  a  process  of  derangement  that 
spares  food  material  cannot  be  considered  use- 
ful any  more  than  we  could  recommend  to  a 
general  to  poison  his  soldiers  in  order  to  cut 
down  their  appetites  and  save  food  supplies. 

Few  intelligent  persons,  however,  still  call 
alcohol  a  food,  and,  since  the  experiments  of  the 
Carnegie  Nutrition  Laboratory,  no  one  thor- 
oughly scientific  still  clings  to  this  old  fallacy, 
as  these  experiments  showed  once  and  for  all 
that  alcohol,  no  matter  how  taken,  or  even  in 
small  quantities,  is  always  a  poison,  a  narcotic 
poison.  Forel  says,  "the  statement  that  a 
poison  can  be  at  the  same  time  a  food  is  a  play 
on  words." 

Especial  significance  must  be  attached  to  the 
deep  and  fundamental  derangement  of  alcohol- 
poisoning  upon  the  processes  of  reproduction  in 
all  cell  life,  the  injury  being  more  marked  and 
more  vital  than  to  any  other  life  process.  One 
of  the  best  illustrations  of  this  is  seen  in  the 


60      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

case  of  the  yeast  or  ferment  germ,  a  single  cell 
vegetable  organism  used  in  the  processes  of  com- 
mercial manufacture  of  alcoholic  liquors.  In 
warm  "  sweet- wort,"  sugary  dextrose  in  water, 
the  yeast  cells  flourish,  multiplying  rapidly  by 
budding  until  they  permeate  the  whole  mass, 
vigorously  carrying  on  their  life  processes, 
producing  enzymes  that  ferment  the  sugar, 
breaking  it  up  into  lower  waste  products,  one 
a  gas,  carbon  dioxide,  which  causes  the  bub- 
bling, the  other  a  liquid,  alcohol.  The  alcohol, 
not  being  eliminated,  begins  quickly  to  attack 
the  yeast  germs  themselves.  When  the  alcohol 
is  only  one  part  in  a  thousand  it  has  a  marked 
effect  upon  the  life  processes,  but  especially 
upon  the  budding  reproduction  processes,  which 
begin  to  subside  and  continue  to  subside  as  the 
proportion  of  alcohol  increases  until  it  reaches 
twelve  to  fourteen  per  cent.  Then  the  whole 
process  of  fermentation  ends,  because  the  waste 
product  or  toxin,  alcohol,  then  destroys  the 
germs  that  produce  it.  More  concentrated  alco- 
hol must  then  be  produced  by  distillation.  It 
cannot  be  produced  by  further  fermentation. 
When  we  bear  in  mind  that  no  other  form  of  life 
is  as  tolerant  or  as  resistant  to  alcohol  as  is  its 
own  yeast  germ,  we  can  readily  understand  how 
terrible  must  be  the  effect  of  this  poison  alcohol 
upon  the  processes  of  reproduction  of  all  other 
forms  of  life. 

The  fact  that  alcohol  is  produced  as  a  waste 
product  from  the  life  processes  of  a  lower  form 
of  life,  the  single  cell  yeast  or  ferment  germ, 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  51 

and  promptly  deranges  the  life  processes, 
poisons  and  destroys  these  germs  themselves, 
should  have  suggested  to  thoughtful  men  long 
ago  that  it  was  a  protoplasm  poison,  that  if  it 
poisons  the  lowest  form  of  life  it  must,  in  in- 
creasing scale,  poison  the  higher,  more  delicate 
and  sensitive  forms. 

It  is  singular  that  the  medical  world  did  not 
sooner  suspect  the  true  nature  of  alcohol, 
recognizing  in  it  a  toxin  of  a  low  order  of  life 
like  the  toxins  of  diphtheria,  pneumonia,  and 
other  disease  bacteria.  As  soon  as  the  medical 
world  discovered  the  dangerous  nature  of  the 
toxin  of  such  micro-organisms,  it  could  have 
deduced  at  once  that  the  toxin  of  the  ferment 
germ,  alcohol,  must  be  in  the  same  class. 

The  deranging  and  destructive  effect  of 
alcohol  on  low  orders  of  life,  plant  and  animal, 
has  been  verified  time  and  time  again,  and  can 
be  verified  still  further  with  little  difficulty. 
The  very  fact,  well  known,  that  organic  matter, 
vegetable  or  animal,  can  be  preserved  in  alcohol, 
is  itself  proof  that  no  living  process  can  go  on 
within  the  alcohol,  and  that  nothing  living,  not 
even  single  cell  germs  themselves,  can  penetrate 
the  alcohol,  not  even  the  ferment  germs  that 
produce  the  alcohol. 

In  the  case  of  higher  types,  like  animals  with 
a  regular  circulation,  the  startling  fact  has  been 
found  that  in  no  case  can  an  animal  survive  if 
the  alcohol  reaches  even  six  parts  in  a  thousand 
parts  of  the  blood.1    It  can  be  said,  practically, 

1  Cushny's  "  Pharmacology." 


62      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

that  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  of  alcohol  in  the 
blood  of  an  animal  will  quickly  cause  death. 
As  the  scale  of  life  ascends  and  the  life  proc- 
esses become  more  delicate  and  complicated,  it 
is  naturally  to  be  expected  that  this  toxic  poison 
must  more  and  more  derange  the  vital  functions. 
Likewise  in  the  same  animal  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  the  total  effect  will  be  more  disastrously 
felt  in  the  delicate  tissues  which  are  the  latest 
in  the  creature's  evolution. 

Thus,  we  must  look  for  alcohol  to  have 
greater  destructive  effect  in  proportion  upon 
man  than  upon  other  living  things,  and  more 
marked  effect  upon  man's  delicate  nervous 
system  than  upon  any  other  part,  the  greatest 
effect  appearing  in  the  brain  in  those  nerve  ele- 
ments associated  with  moral  and  spiritual  at- 
tributes, these  being  of  the  most  recent  evolu- 
tion and  the  most  delicate  and  complex  nature. 

As  will  be  seen  later  under  toxicology,  ^.ve 
ounces,  a  small  tumbler  full,  is  the  minimum  fatal 
dose  for  man,  causing  death  within  ten  hours. 

This  brief  review  of  the  biological  character- 
istics of  alcohol  leads  necessarily  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  is  not  only  a  protoplasm  poison  but 
that  it  will  be  found  to  be  a  habit-forming  drug 
and  a  specific  agent  of  degeneracy  for  all  life, 
especially  destructive  in  bringing  a  chain  of  life 
to  an  end  by  interfering  with  its  powers  of  re- 
production. 

Alcohol  and  Physical  Pathology. 
Experience    verifies    and    elaborates    what 


"A  PROTOPLASM  POISON  53 

chemistry  and  biology  demonstrate,  that  bever- 
age alcohol  as  used  by  a  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  world  both  in  temperate  and  intemperate 
drinking  impairs  and  tends  to  destroy  the 
human  organism  both  in  its  functions  and  in 
its  structure.  It  injures  the  normal  processes 
of  supplying  the  system  with  nourishment — 
digestion,  circulation,  assimilation.  It  dam- 
ages all  processes  of  utilization  for  current  ex- 
penditures, for  repair  and  growth.  It  inter- 
feres with  all  processes  of  waste  elimination — 
respiration,  perspiration,  and  urinary  and  fecal 
excretion.  It  disturbs  and  paralyzes  all  proc- 
esses of  regulation,  voluntary  and  involuntary. 
It  vitiates  and  nullifies  the  processes  of  repro- 
duction. All  of  these  vital  functions  are  im- 
paired by  alcohol  in  proportion  to  the  amount 
of  poison  taken,  the  time  and  the  condition  of 
the  indulgence  influencing  the  extent  of  the 
effect. 

No  organ  in  the  system  of  the  average  tem- 
perate regular  drinker,  no  elemental  proto- 
plasm, can  possibly  escape  some  injury — the 
blood,  stomach,  intestines,  pancreas,  heart, 
blood  vessels,  liver,  kidneys,  lungs,  skin,  nerv- 
ous system,  brain,  spinal  cord,  ovaries,  testicles, 
bone,  sinews — all  suffer  more  or  less,  and  with 
them,  of  necessity,  the  body,  the  mind,  the 
morals,  and  the  character.  And  the  tragic 
climax  is  that  the  yet  unborn  children  of  such 
drinkers  will  reap  the  most  terrible  harvests 
of  all. 

As  in  the  case  of  other  protoplasm  poisons 


54      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

and  poisons  in  general,  the  derangement  and 
injury  are  variable,  not  only  according  to  the 
amount  of  the  poison,  but  the  effect  varies  also 
in  different  tissues  and  organs.  With  alcohol 
the  first  effect  is  upon  the  reflex  centers,  con- 
trolling involuntary  movements,  but  the  elective 
affinity  or  preference  is  for  the  organ  of  repro- 
duction and  the  central  nervous  system,  the  de- 
rangements of  which  disturb  the  functions  of  the 
rest  of  the  organism,  complicating  and,  in  some 
parts,  for  the  time,  counteracting  the  direct  nar- 
cotic effect.  Thus  the  early  narcotic  effect  upon 
centers  of  inhibition  and  control,  removes  or- 
dinary restraints,  and  permits  speeding  up  of 
function  in  various  organs  before  the  full  nar- 
cotic effect  can  reduce  this  speed.  This  compli- 
cation for  a  long  time  obscured  the  real  effect  of 
alcohol  and  caused  it  to  be  regarded  even  in  the 
medical  world  as  a  stimulant.  This  in  part  ac- 
counts for  its  false  hold  upon  the  science  of 
medicine  for  so  many  generations. 

Alcohol  has  an  irritating  effect  when  applied 
externally  but  other  substances  are  better 
irritants;  it  is  an  anaesthetic,  but  chloroform 
and  ether  are  better  anaesthetics ;  it  has  an  anti- 
septic effect,  but  a  three  per  cent,  solution  of 
carbolic  acid  is  better  than  a  seventy-five  per 
cent,  solution  of  alcohol ;  it  produces  heat  when 
oxidized  in  the  body,  but  it  causes  the  body  to 
lose  more  heat  than  this  oxidization  produces; 
it  saves  some  of  the  fat  from  being  burned,  but 
as  a  rule  the  fat  it  saves  ought  to  be  burned 
instead  of  lodging  in  the  heart  tissues  and  other 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  55 

vital  organs  where  it  becomes  a  source  of  dan- 
ger. It  is  good  fuel  for  an  engine  or  a  lamp, 
but  the  idea  of  this  protoplasm  poison  being 
good  for  fuel  or  food  in  the  body  of  man  or  any 
living  thing  is  illogical,  unscientific  and  alto- 
gether preposterous. 

The  medical  profession  as  a  whole,  which  was 
at  first  loath  to  give  up  a  drug  so  accessible  and 
so  popular,  has  now  authoritatively  divorced 
alcohol  from  use  as  medicine.1  As  mentioned 
above,  the  American  pharmacopoeia,  prepared 
under  the  authority  of  the  American  Medical 
Association,  has  omitted  all  forms  of  alcohol 
from  its  list  of  medicines. 

There  is  no  code  of  appeals  above  the  truth 
once  established  by  science.  The  sentence  upon 
alcohol  has  been  pronounced.  It  has  no  legiti- 
mate place  as  food,  or  drink,  or  medicine,  and 
must  retire  to  the  field  of  the  arts;  and  even 
here  it  must  be  denatured  from  its  high  estate 
of  dominion  over  the  world  and  step  down  to 
the  rank  of  a  toiler. 

Pathology  of  the  Skin. 

When  alcohol  is  applied  externally  the  skin 
affords  reasonable  protection  against  it,  largely 
because  of  its  quick  evaporation.  In  this  way 
alcohol  produces  a  cooling  effect  while  it  also 
helps  to  cleanse  as  a  germicide  and  is  a  solvent 
of  grease  and  other  substances.  If,  however, 
evaporation  is  delayed,  the  continued  presence 

1  Charles    H.     Mayo,    Richard    Cabot,    resolution    of 
American  Medical  Association  June  6,  1917. 


56      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

of  alcohol  will  irritate  and  harden  the  skin, 
some  of  it  penetrating  to  the  blood-vessels  and 
nerve-endings  below,  producing  characteristic 
disturbances.  It  is  not  necessary  to  take  up 
in  more  detail  the  question  of  the  external  use 
of  alcohol,  for  it  is  in  its  internal  use  that  it 
has  exerted  so  direful  an  influence  upon  the 
course  of  history. 

Pathology  of  Nutrition. 

In  its  injurious  effect  on  nutrition,  derange- 
ment begins  the  moment  alcohol  enters  the 
mouth.  The  delicate  mucous  membrane  or  out- 
side skin  is  quickly  affected.  Whether  in  the 
mouth,  gullet,  stomach,  or  intestines  the  effect 
in  general  is  the  same.  The  shock  upon  the 
nerve-endings  quickly  causes  a  reflex  action 
which  deranges  the  normal,  healthy  formation 
of  juices  necessary  to  alimentation,  including 
the  juices  of  the  salivary  glands,  the  pancreas, 
and  liver,  as  well  as  the  juices  formed  in  the 
alimentary  canal  itself.  This  reflex  action, 
even  at  an  early  stage,  naturally  tends  to 
derange  all  other  normal  functions  of  the 
system. 

The  irritant,  poisoning  effect  is  next  felt  upon 
the  complex  network  of  blood-vessels,  just  be- 
neath the  mucous  membrane,  causing  them  to 
dilate  and  congest  with  blood,  thus  deranging 
their  function  of  gathering  up  the  digested 
food.  This  also  causes  the  membrane  to  ex- 
crete excessive  mucus,  which  in  turn  impedes 
all  the  functions  of  the  membrane. 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  67 

The  direct  effect  upon  the  protoplasm  of  the 
cells  of  the  membrane  is  typical.  The  protein 
elements  begin  to  clog  while  the  water  is  sucked 
out.  The  hardening,  parching  effect  can  be 
readily  perceived  by  retaining  alcohol  in  the 
mouth  even  for  a  short  time.  This  hardening, 
of  course,  impairs  the  sense  of  taste  and  its 
function  in  alimentation.  When  the  alcohol 
passes  on,  the  protoplasm  tends  to  re-absorb 
its  required  water,  and  in  course  of  time 
to  resume  its  natural  function,  but  it  will  never 
have  quite  the  same  vitality  again.  As  the 
poisoning  is  repeated  the  injury  deepens.  The 
cells  degenerate,  shrivel,  and  are  thrown  off 
without  having  first  reproduced  themselves. 
Finally  the  protecting  surface-cells  of  the  mem- 
brane peel  off,  especially  in  the  pit  of  the  stom- 
ach where  the  alcohol  rests  longest.  When  this 
takes  place  the  more  delicate  cells  beneath  are 
exposed  and  in  turn  are  subjected  to  more  vio- 
lent congestion  and  derangement.  The  waste 
cells  thrown  off,  and  the  excessive  mucus 
caused  by  the  congestion,  clog  the  surface  of 
the  gastric  gland,  working,  at  last,  irreparable 
injury  to  digestion. 

In  the  same  general  way,  the  function  of  the 
mucous  membranes  and  fine  blood-vessels  in 
absorbing  the  food  fluids,  as  well  as  their  other 
complex  activities,  are  deranged.  In  addition, 
the  reflex  influence  lowers  the  churning  power 
of  the  muscles  of  the  stomach. 

The  poisoning  effect  on  the  mucous  mem- 
branes, through  irritation,   reflex  action  and 


58      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

congestion,  may  produce  a  temporary,  abnormal 
supply  of  digestive  juices,  producing  the  im- 
pression of  aiding  digestion.  Nevertheless,  the 
flood  of  mucous  and  the  dilution  of  the  juices, 
the  loss  of  tone  of  the  stomach-churning  mus- 
cles, the  tendency  of  albumen  and  protein  sub- 
stances to  coagulate,  the  loss  of  selective 
absorption,  and  the  general  derangement,  cause 
retardation  not  acceleration,  injury  not  aid,  to 
digestion,  however  much  the  victim  may  "  feel " 
otherwise. 

When  we  realize  how  delicate  are  the  cells  of 
the  mucous  membrane  from  the  mouth  to  the 
intestines,  how  delicate  are  the  processes  of 
alimentation,  it  seems  incredible  that  the  delu- 
sion that  this  protoplasm  poison  is  an  "  aid  "  to 
digestion  should  have  persisted  so  long  in  the 
popular  mind  along  with  its  twin  delusion  that 
alcohol  is  a  "  food."  Wine  is  surely  a  mocker, 
and  a  past  master  at  the  art,  but  even  the  "  aid- 
to-digestion  "  and  "food"  apologists  have  not 
denied  that  this  protoplasm  poison,  of  necessity, 
injures  the  cells  of  the  alimentary  canal  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  and  the  frequency  of  the 
beverage  taken,  and  that  this  cumulative  injury, 
of  necessity,  must  more  and  more  impair  the 
whole  process  of  nutrition,  and  this  in  turn 
must  affect  all  parts  of  the  body. 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  so  many  mil- 
lions of  people,  regarded  as  intelligent  and  well- 
informed,  should  continue  subjecting  themselves 
to  this  injury.  When  we  think  of  the  billions 
of  gallons  of  alcoholic  beverages  consumed  every 


A  PEOTOPLASM  POISON  59 

year,  the  mind  is  almost  appalled  by  the  thought 
of  the  incalculable  injury  to  the  nutrition, 
vitality,  and  efficiency  of  the  race. 

Pathology  of  the  Blood  and  Circulation. 

Injury  to  the  alimentary  canal  and  derange- 
ment of  the  processes  of  digestion  are  but  the 
beginning  of  alcohol's  disturbing  career  in  the 
body.  None  of  the  digestive  juices  can  digest 
the  alcohol;  so  it  quickly  makes  its  way  un- 
altered into  the  blood,  about  twenty  per  cent, 
being  absorbed  from  the  stomach  and  about 
eighty  per  cent,  from  the  intestines.  The  maxi- 
mum proportion  is  found  in  the  blood  in  from 
thirty  to  ninety  minutes  after  the  drink,  the 
maximum  effect  upon  the  system  naturally  fol- 
lowing later. 

Upon  entering  the  blood  the  alcohol  strikes 
the  blood  constituents  and  begins  at  once  poison- 
ing them  all  by  taking  away  water  and  oxygen, 
and  by  coagulating  protein  and  albumen.  The 
fluid  plasma,  largely  composed  of  these  sub- 
stances, is  affected  through  and  through.  Its 
work  of  carrying  food  materials  to  the  body- 
cells,  and  waste  materials  away,  is  impaired. 
Likewise  the  poison  interferes  with  the  supple- 
mental substances  carried  in  the  blood  to  fur- 
ther prepare  cell-food  and  to  destroy  germs  and 
microbes.  In  this  way  nutrition  is  addedly 
impaired  and  the  body  is  opened  up  to  attacks 
of  disease. 

The  myriad  red  blood-cells,  living  vehicles 
transporting  their  precious  cargoes  of  oxygen 


60      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

from  the  lungs  to  the  cells,  and  their  return 
cargoes  of  waste  from  the  cells  to  the  lungs,  are 
assailed  by  the  alcohol.  Their  protective  cov- 
ering is  pierced,  as  in  the  case  of  attack  by 
chloroform  and  ether,  and  part  of  the  oxygen 
is  seized  by  the  poison  and  the  structure  of  the 
corpuscles  injured. 

This  inefficiency  produced  in  the  transporta- 
tion of  oxygen  and  waste  products  affects  the 
very  breath  of  life  of  all  the  cells  of  the  body 
as  it  does  that  of  the  nerves.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  six  parts  of  alcohol  to  a  thousand  in 
the  blood  is  the  minimum  fatal  dose  for  animals. 

The  white  blood-cells,  complete  living  cells  as 
they  are,  patrolling  the  system  like  a  defending 
army  to  destroy  invading  and  disturbing 
enemies,  germs  and  microbes,  are  fiercely  as- 
sailed by  the  alcohol.  Partially  paralyzed, 
they  become  slow  and  respond  irregularly  to  the 
calls  for  mobilization  and  attacking  enemy 
microbes.  With  this  loss  of  efficiency  in  defense 
and  resistance  through  the  general  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  white  corpuscle  army,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  enemy  invaders  can  more  readily 
establish  themselves,  particularly  the  powerful 
microbes  of  pneumonia  and  typhoid,  and  the 
dangerous  germs  of  consumption. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  general  drinking  in  a 
nation,  even  though  it  be  kept  within  "mod- 
erate "  bounds,  must  produce  a  serious  rise  of 
mortality  and  levy  a  heavy  toll  of  death  upon 
a  nation.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Medical  Association  at 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  61 

the  recent  annual  convention  in  Chicago,  while 
recommending  nation-wide  prohibition,  should 
have  declared  drinking  the  greatest  factor  in 
lowering  the  public  health. 

The  health  and  vigour  of  the  myriad  cells  of 
the  body  require  not  only  a  high  quality  of 
blood,  but  a  normal,  well-regulated  supply. 
Derangement  follows  an  abnormal  supply, 
whether  it  be  a  surplus  or  deficit.  Nature  has 
provided  a  delicate  automatic  regulation  of  the 
supply  through  the  central  nervous  system  in 
its  control  over  the  speed  of  the  pumping  power, 
the  heart,  and  over  the  size  of  the  blood-vessels. 

Alcohol,  chloroform,  ether  and  other  poison- 
ous members  of  the  methane  hydrocarbon 
group,  depress  the  central  nervous  system, 
penetrating  beneath  the  sheathing  that  protects 
the  nerves.  The  effect  upon  the  deep  seated 
centers  of  the  medulla,  which  regulates  the 
breathing  and  circulation,  comes  later  and  is 
less  marked  than  over  the  higher  centers  of  the 
cerebellum,  and  of  the  cerebrum,  the  seat  of  con- 
sciousness, judgment  and  self-control. 

In  fact,  the  depression  of  the  centers  of  con- 
trol causes  a  feeling  of  excitement  and  fancied 
stimulation  before  the  full  effect  of  the  depres- 
sion is  felt  on  the  lower  centers. 

Chloroform  and  ether  have  less  affinity  for 
water  and  other  fluids  of  the  body  than  has 
alcohol,  so  larger  proportions  of  these  two  drugs 
reach  the  central  nervous  system. 

Thus  it  takes  longer  for  alcohol  to  bring  about 
unconsciousness;    but    when    unconsciousness 


62      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

comes  it  is  deeper,  more  prolonged  and  more 
dangerous,  being  more  liable  to  paralyze  the 
medulla  and  cause  death.  If  unconsciousness 
from  alcohol  continues  from  ten  to  twelve 
hours  death  is  practically  certain.1 

When  alcohol,  borne  by  the  blood,  reaches 
the  heart  muscles  its  effect  is  very  much  like 
that  of  chloroform  and  the  diphtheria  toxin, 
causing  poisoning  of  the  protoplasm,  swelling 
and  cloginess.  When  persisted  in,  fat  collects 
between  the  muscle  fibers.  This,  in  conse- 
quence, gradually  weakens  the  power  of  the 
heart,  producing  dilation  and  stretching,  to- 
gether with  a  general  derangement  of  the  whole 
circulation,  especially  in  the  blood  supply  of 
the  viscera,  liver,  spleen,  stomach,  etc.  These 
organs  become  congested  with  venous  blood. 

As  the  pumping  power  of  the  heart  declines, 
the  blood  literally  stagnates  all  over  the  body. 
Its  quality  becomes  poor,  while  its  circulation 
through  the  body  cells  is  defective.  This  mal- 
nutrition, in  time,  further  lowers  the  strength 
and  efficiency  of  the  heart  itself.  The  weakened 
heart  thus  produced  even  by  temperate  drink- 
ing is  liable  to  collapse  and  give  way  even  under 
ordinary  muscular  strain  or  the  attack  of  dis- 
ease not  ordinarily  dangerous.  This  weakening 
of  the  heart  through  drink  is  an  important 
factor  in  the  appalling  mortality  of  men  in 
their  prime. 

The  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  blood-vessels  is 
much  the  same  as  it  is  upon  the  heart.    First 

1  Cushny's  "  Pharmacology." 


A  PKOTOPLASM  POISON  63 

congestion  and  stagnation,  then  the  gradual 
thickening  of  the  vessel  walls,  with  loss  of 
elasticity  and  strength  of  the  muscles,  followed 
by  fatty  degeneration.  These  derangements 
throw  more  work  on  the  heart,  which  itself  is 
progressively  weakening.  Coupled  with  all 
this  is  an  interference  with  the  outward  passage 
through  the  walls  of  the  blood-vessels  of  the 
nourishment  going  to  the  cells  the  vessels  serve 
and  the  intaking  of  the  waste  products  which  it 
is  the  function  of  the  blood  to  absorb  and  carry 
away. 

Pathology  of  the  Liver. 

Upon  the  liver  the  effect  is  particularly 
marked  on  account  of  its  complex  structure 
and  multiple  functions.  Coming  with  the  par- 
tially digested  food  straight  from  the  stomach 
and  intestines,  the  alcohol  causes  inevitable  con- 
gestion in  the  great  network  of  blood-vessels, 
large  and  small  alike,  deranging  the  liver  proc- 
esses of  working  over  the  food  substances  and 
storing  up  starchy  foods  in  reserve,  and  pre- 
venting the  proper  formation  of  the  digestive 
bile  fluid  and  its  systematic  discharge  into  the 
intestines. 

Acting  on  the  liver  cells,  alcohol  causes  them 
to  swell,  press  upon  and  constrict  the  blood- 
vessels. The  nuclei  of  the  cells  are  attacked 
and  their  nature  is  modified  by  the  poison. 
They  turn  pale  and  shrink,  and  many  of  them 
die  without  reproducing  themselves.  Thus  the 
liver  grows  smaller  and  has  but  a  reduced  num- 


64      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

ber  of  cells,  and  all  of  tlieni  of  lowered  efficiency ; 
and  this  just  at  the  time  when,  owing  to  the 
general  derangement  caused  by  the  poison,  the 
body  needs  more  than  ever  the  full  caj>acity  and 
most  efficient  service  of  this  vital  organ. 

Nor  does  the  jelly  protoplasm  surrounding 
the  nuclei  escape.  Here  fatty  degeneration 
gradually  sets  in,  further  incapacitating  the 
cells  and  lowering  the  efficiency  of  the  organ. 

When  the  cells  of  the  liver  die  the  fibrous 
connective  tissues,  forming  the  supporting 
structure  of  the  liver  and  blood-vessels,  gradu- 
ally fill  up  the  space  left  by  the  dead  cells. 
This  inert,  low-grade,  scar  tissue,  taking  the 
place  of  the  dead  and  dying  cells,  in  turn  con- 
tracts and  presses  upon  the  weakened  diver- 
tissue  proper,  hastening  its  disintegration  and 
death. 

Liver  derangements  are  more  marked  and 
permanent  when  alcohol  is  taken  regularly, 
even  though  "in  moderation,"  as  the  world 
uses  that  term,  than  when  it  is  taken  occa- 
sionally to  excess. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  elaborate  the  ills  that 
follow  from  the  injuries  to  this  important  organ, 
such  as  lowered  nourishment  of  the  whole  body, 
imperfect  elimination  of  poisons  and  waste 
products,  pain,  declining  health,  premature 
death.  So  prolific  is  alcohol  as  a  cause  of  liver 
troubles  that  death  from  certain  diseases  of  the 
liver  is  commonly  assumed  to  be  due  to  alcohol 
unless  otherwise  specified. 

It  is  not  now  necessary  to  describe  alcohol's 


A  PROTOPLASM  POISON  65 

deranging  effect  upon  the  kidneys,  pancreas, 
and  other  organs  and  glands.  This  brief  de- 
scription of  the  poisoning  effect  of  the  drug 
upon  the  stomach  and  alimentary  canal,  upon 
the  blood,  the  heart,  the  blood-vessels  and  the 
liver  is  sufficient,  without  even  considering  the 
drug's  supreme  affinity  for  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, to  show  that  the  general  effect  upon  the 
wonderful  cell-complex,  the  human  body,  is  in 
exact  accord  with  its  effect  upon  elemental 
cells.  In  both  there  follows  derangement  of 
nutrition,  of  oxidation,  of  elimination  of  waste, 
of  reproduction,  and  a  general  interference  with 
metabolism.  All  normal  physical  activities  are 
disturbed,  structure  is  impaired,  and  the  way 
is  paved  for  degeneracy  and  death. 


II 

ALCOHOL,  A  HABIT-FOKMING  DKUG 

Alcoholic  Pathology  (continued). 

MOST  poisonous  drugs,  especially  the 
organic  poisons,  to  which  alcohol  be- 
longs, have  a  special  affinity  for  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  human  organism,  even  though 
the  drug  be  poisonous  to  all  parts. 

When  a  victim  of  alcohol  poisoning  is  quickly 
dissected,  it  is  found  that  the  brain  contains 
many  times  more  alcohol  in  proportion  to  its 
weight  than  any  other  part  except  the  organs 
of  reproduction,  the  testicles  and  ovaries;  in 
fact  it  contains  about  as  much  as  all  of  the 
balance  of  the  body. 

It  is  thus  clear  that  alcohol  has  a  special 
affinity  for  the  nervous  system,  the  paramount 
and  dominant  part  of  the  human  organism. 
The  degree  of  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system  practically  determines  the  place  of  any 
animal  or  species  in  the  scale  of  life.  This  is 
readily  understood  when  it  is  remembered  that 
the  nervous  system  is  the  regulating  vehicle  of 
the  whole  organism,  determining  and  correlat- 
ing all  activities. 

Keason  and  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual 
attributes  are  only  found  associated  with  a 
highly  developed  nervous  system.     The  relative 

66 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DRUG  67 

development  of  the  nervous  system  not  only 
determines  the  position  of  the  species  in  the 
scale  of  life,  but  the  stage  of  progress  of  races 
within  the  species,  and  the  power  and  influence 
of  the  nation  and  the  individual  within  the  race. 
Development  of  the  nervous  system  is  the 
anatomical  line  of  evolution  of  the  higher 
species,  if  not  of  all  life. 

The  order  of  the  evolution  of  the  nervous 
system  in  the  human  species  follows  the  se- 
quence of  evolution  in  general,  proceeding  from 
the  simple  to  the  complex,  the  earliest  and  sim- 
plest part  being  the  lower  brain,  the  cerebellum, 
and  the  spinal  cord,  with  their  connecting 
medulla-oblongata  and  outgoing  and  incoming 
nerves  leading  to  the  heart,  lungs  and  all  vital 
organs  and  to  all  tissues  and  exposed  surfaces. 
These  regulate  the  elemental  life-functions. 
The  later  and  more  complex  part  is  the  upper 
brain,  the  cerebrum.  This  is  the  major  part 
of  the  human  brain.  It  regulates  the  more 
complex  functions  of  control  and  inhibition, 
and  houses  the  delicate  physical  machinery  of 
reason,  judgment,  and  all  moral  and  spiritual 
activities.  This  tender,  upper  brain,  younger 
in  evolution  and  more  delicate,  would  naturally 
be  more  susceptible  to  attacking  agents,  espe- 
cially the  protoplasm  poisons  to  which  alcohol 
belongs.  Yet  the  injury  done  is  less  likely  to 
be  appreciated  and  may  proceed  to  great  lengths 
without  the  victim's  realizing  the  seriousness 
of  his  condition,  because  the  less  delicate  lower 
brain  and  medulla,  presiding  over  the  heart  and 


68      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

lungs,  continue  able  to  maintain  the  simpler, 
elemental  life-processes  for  long  periods  under 
their  slower  and  less  perceptible  injuries.  This 
is  why  there  is  popular  and  full  appreciation  of 
the  poisonous  nature  of  all  drugs  which  quickly 
and  directly  attack  the  lower  brain  and  medulla 
and  bring  sudden  death  from  the  cessation  of 
the  heart  beat  and  respiration,  but  an  appalling 
lack  of  appreciation  of  the  equally  poisonous 
nature  of  the  drugs  which  first  attack  the  upper 
brain,  the  seat  of  consciousness,  and  incapaci- 
tate it  from  apprehending  both  its  own  injury 
and  the  sure  but  slower  injury  to  the  lower 
brain. 

The  gray  matter  of  the  nerve-cells  of  the 
brain  consists  of  about  eight-tenths  water,  one- 
tenth  of  proteins,  albumen,  and  gelatin,  a  little 
less  than  one-tenth  lipoids,  special  nerve  proto- 
plasm, and  a  little  salt.  Eemembering  that 
alcohol  sucks  up  water,  hardens  and  coagulates 
protein,  and  dissolves  lipoid,  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand its  special  deranging  effect  upon  the 
nervous  system.  Even  the  nerve  fibers  that  have 
protecting  sheathing  are  subject  to  the  attack 
of  this  drug,  for  alcohol  readily  penetrates  this 
sheathing,  which  is  composed  chiefly  of  fatty 
substances  which  are  soluble  in  alcohol. 

The  regular  life  processes  of  the  nerve-cells, 
nutrition,  oxidation,  and  excretion,  are  deranged 
by  alcohol  in  the  same  general  way  as  described 
above  for  other  cells,  but  in  a  more  marked 
degree.  As  the  nervous  system  is  later  in  evolu- 
tion, more  delicate  and  complex  than  the  other 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DEUG  69 

parts  of  the  body,  and  is  more  largely  composed 
of  elements  for  which  alcohol  has  a  direct  and 
special  affinity,  the  derangement  here  to  both 
structure  and  function  is  far  greater  in  propor- 
tion than  in  any  other  part,  reacting  danger- 
ously upon  all  other  parts  controlled  and  regu- 
lated by  the  nervous  system.  Since  the  upper 
brain  is  the  physical  basis  of  thought,  feeling, 
judgment,  and  self-control,  and  is  the  physical 
organ  of  the  will,  of  the  consciousness  of  God, 
of  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  of  ideas  of 
justice,  duty,  love,  mercy,  self-sacrifice  and  all 
that  makes  character,  any  injury  to  this  crown- 
ing and  delicately  constituted  nerve  mechanism 
is  attended  with  far-reaching  consequences — 
consequences,  alas !  not  limited  to  the  individual 
who  drinks,  but  affecting  his  family,  his  coun- 
try, the  evolution  of  human  life,  and  the  destiny 
of  man  and  the  will  of  God  in  creation.  It  is 
obvious  from  this  that  no  human  being  can  have 
any  natural  or  inherent  right  to  drink  liquor. 
It  is  further  obvious  that  alcohol  will  always 
strike  its  costliest  blows  at  the  most  nobly 
organized  brains.  It  weakens  the  strong,  takes 
away  the  judgment  of  the  wise,  makes  cowardly 
the  brave,  withers  loyalty  and  self-sacrifice  and 
injures  the  capacity  for  love  and  devotion. 

The  protoplasm  of  the  nerve-cells  is  more 
highly  organized  and  developed  than  that  of 
other  cells.  The  central  nucleus  is  surrounded 
by  highly  developed  spindle-shaped,  striped  or 
tigroid-bodies,  held  in  opaque  protoplasm,  from 
which  shoot  out  twigs  or  dendrites,  variable  in 


70      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

number  and  length,  which,  in  turn  shoot  out 
small  twigs.  One  of  the  main  twigs,  extended 
in  length,  is  the  nerve  fiber.  In  exposed  parts 
of  the  body  the  nerve  fiber  and  its  offshoots 
have  the  protection  of  sheathing.  Through  the 
twigs  the  central  cells  maintain  communication 
with  other  cells  in  the  same  part  of  the  nervous 
system,  and  through  the  longer  fibers  with  cells 
and  other  parts,  binding  up  the  whole  together ; 
while  fibers  in  bundles  and  trunk  lines,  each 
with  its  own  fatty  sheath  or  insulation,  extend 
to  all  parts  of  the  body,  ending  in  sensitive  cells 
which  receive  and  transmit  impressions.  Cer- 
tain fibers  take  messages  to  the  central  system, 
others  carry  power  and  instructions  back.  Some 
of  the  smaller  cells  only  receive  messages, 
notifying  the  centers  concerned;  others,  larger 
in  size,  generate  nerve  force  as  called  upon, 
discharging  it  through  the  fiber  to  the  organs, 
muscles,  or  other  parts  involved.  Some  of  the 
higher  centers  automatically,  and  some  through 
volition,  decide  upon  the  nature  of  the  instruc- 
tions given  to  the  larger  cells,  causing  the  proc- 
esses of  knowing,  judging,  feeling,  willing, 
acting. 

Under  the  attack  of  alcohol  poison  upon  a  cell 
the  twigs  soften,  swell,  and  then  become  rough. 
This  effect,  temporary  at  first,  becomes  perma- 
nent if  the  use  of  alcohol  is  continued.  As  the 
principal  twigs  become  permanently  swollen  and 
knotty,  the  smaller  twigs  and  buds  drop  off. 
Finally  the  outer  parts  of  the  main  twigs  dis- 
appear, leaving  only  knotted  stumps. 


A  HABIT-FOBMING  DEUG  71 

As  in  the  cases  of  other  cells  described  before, 
alcohol,  in  addition,  hardens  the  protein  sub- 
stance, interferes  with  nutrition,  oxidation  and 
excretion.  The  cell  body  becomes  swollen,  the 
tigroid-bodies  gradually  disappear.  The  nu- 
cleus becomes  spongy  and  is  pushed  out  from 
the  center  toward  the  surface.  Empty  spaces 
form  and  finally  some  of  the  cells  rot  away  with 
fatty  degeneration  and  disappear,  never  to  be 
replaced,  while  some  are  replaced  by  inert  scar- 
tissue,  as  in  the  case  of  cells  of  the  liver  and 
heart.  These  small,  inert,  supporting  cells,  of 
no  nerve  value,  take  the  place  of  the  highly 
sensitive,  masterful,  and  vital  nerve-cell  bodies. 
As  the  diseased  nerve-cells  disintegrate,  scaven- 
ger cells,  resembling  spiders,  appear  and  devour 
them. 

The  damage  inflicted  by  the  poison  increases 
with  the  delicacy  and  complexity  of  the  nerve 
protoplasm.  The  parts  of  the  nervous  system 
last  and  least  damaged,  permanently,  are  the 
fibers  leading  out  from  the  spinal  cord  and 
brain  to  the  various  parts  of  the  body,  the  skin 
and  sense  organs.  Though  even  small  quan- 
tities of  alcohol  will  temporarily  interfere  with 
their  efficiency,  reducing  the  speed  and  ac- 
curacy of  perceiving  and  conducting  messages, 
continued  use  causes  neuritis  and  local  par- 
alysis. 

Next  in  order  of  increasing  damage  come  the 
automatic  groups  or  ganglia,  distributed  to  and 
presiding  over  the  internal  organs,  constituting, 
with  the  fibers  leading  to  the  spinal  cord  and 


72      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

brain,  the  sympathetic  system.  Then  comes 
the  spinal  cord,  where  fatty  degeneration  ap- 
pears, attended  by  the  appearance  of  scavenger 
spider  cells  which  sometimes  cover  whole  sec- 
tions of  the  cord,  resulting  often  in  meningitis 
and  myelitis. 

Next  comes  the  cerebellum  or  small  brain, 
where  all  forms  of  damage  takes  place,  and  the 
direct  result  is  seen  in  the  general  loss  of  co- 
ordination in  movement.  This  affects  muscular 
efficiency  especially,  particularly  control  over 
the  muscles  of  the. legs. 

As  intimated  above,  alcohol's  greatest  damage 
is  inflicted  upon  the  cerebrum,  or  large  brain, 
where  the  protoplasm  is  most  complex  and  deli- 
cate. There  the  deeper  layers  of  the  cortex,  the 
motor  cells  of  the  fifth  layer  and  large  pyramidal 
cells  suffer  most.  In  the  sixth  layer  it  produces 
the  greatest  number  of  spider  cells,  which  seem 
to  have  a  special  appetite  for  the  spindle-like 
cells,  though  the  larger  pyramidal  cells  are  not 
overlooked  by  these  scavengers.  As  mentioned 
before,  the  first  effect  to  be  noticed  with  small 
doses  is  upon  the  reflexes,  demonstrating  that 
numberless  accidents  are  due  to  most  temperate 
drinking,  a  fact  never  suspected  heretofore. 

In  addition  to  these  injuries  to  the  brain,  the 
interlining  of  the  skull  and  the  delicate  covering 
of  the  brain  carrying  the  blood-vessels  become 
swollen  and  thickened.  Spaces  filled  with  fluid 
form  underneath  and  inert  tissue  and  cells  form 
and  encroach  upon  the  nerve  substance.  The 
whole  mass  of  the  brain  shrinks,  the  convolu- 


A  HABIT-FOBMING  DBUG  73 

tions,  carrying  the  gray  matter,  become  narrow 
and  flat. 

The  walls  of  the  arteries  supplying  the  brain 
swell  in  a  similar  way,  the  outer  wall,  middle 
wall,  and  inner  wall  of  lining  alike,  causing, 
between  the  walls,  leakage  and  an  accumulation 
of  dying  and  decomposing  white  blood  cells 
and  debris,  while  the  opening  or  bore  of  the 
vessels  grows  smaller,  reducing  the  amount  of 
blood  and  lymph  they  carry.  The  same  general 
effect  takes  place  inside  the  brain  itself,  where 
the  interference  with  the  elimination  of  waste 
may  produce  dangerous  results. 

As  the  quantity  of  blood  becomes  less,  its 
quality  also  wanes  in  the  way  outlined  in  the 
discussion  of  alcohol's  effect  on  the  blood  in 
general.  All  the  life  processes  of  the  brain 
cells  are  interfered  with, — nutrition,  oxidation, 
excretion.  The  whole  body,  being  under  the 
regulation  and  control  of  the  brain  and  nervous 
system,  must  seriously  suffer  from  these  de- 
rangements, as  well  as  from  the  general  con- 
stitutional effect  of  the  poison. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  we  find  the  poisoning 
effect  of  alcohol  on  the  nervous  system  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  problem  of  health, 
individual  and  public,  and  with  questions  of 
character  and  conduct.  We  can  readily  read  its 
destructiveness  to  public  health  in  the  increase 
in  meningitis,  neuritis,  gout,  paralysis,  loss  of 
memory,  nervous  debility,  illusions,  timidity, 
cowardice,  delirium  tremens,  dipsomania,  de- 
pression,    melancholia,     insomnia,     hysteria, 


74      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

epilepsy,  convulsions,  dementia,  insanity  and 
suicide.  And  we  can  readily  see  its  influence 
upon  public  morals  in  widespread  loss  of  judg- 
ment and  self-control,  in  neglect  of  natural 
duties,  in  crimes,  and  immorality. 

Alcohol  and  the  Senses. 

The  deranging  influence  of  alcohol,  as  seen 
in  the  previous  section,  extends  to  all  parts  of 
the  nervous  system,  to  the  cerebrum,  the  cere- 
bellum, the  spinal  cord,  the  nerve  fibers  and 
nerve  endings;  consequently,  we  must  expect 
corresponding  derangement  in  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  mind.  The  senses,  the  basis  of  so 
large  a  part  of  these  phenomena,  are  affected 
both  in  their  outer  organs  and  nerve  endings, 
and  in  their  corresponding  central  nerve-cells 
in  the  brain,  thus  interfering  with  and  falsify- 
ing the  mind's  communication  with  the  outside 
world.1  The  Sense  of  Touch  and  the  Muscular 
Sense2  are  easily  deranged,  producing  varia- 
bility and  unreliability.  In  workers  in  the  arts 
and  industries,  these  results  have  been  fre- 
quently manifested  and  accurately  measured, 
proving  that  in  many  instances  the  impression 
of  the  drinker  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  truth. 
He  has  a  sense  of  greater  accuracy  and  speed 
while  working  less  accurately  and  more  slowly. 
In  extreme  cases  illusions  and  hallucinations 
arise.     Delirium  tremens  is  liable  to  set  in, 

1  George    B.     Cutten — "  Psychology    of    Alcoholism." 
Kraepelin,  Kurz,  Aschaffenburg,  Vogt. 

2  Dubois,  Schnyder,  Hellsten. 


A  HABIT-F0EM1NG  DEUG  75 

when  the  victim  will  believe  that  spiders,  worms 
and  scorpions,  are  crawling  over  his  flesh. 

Sight,  the  most  delicate  and  complex  of  all 
the  senses,  is  the  one  most  deranged  by  alcoholic 
poisoning,  the  injury  in  extreme  cases  resulting 
not  infrequently  in  partial  or  total  blindness. 
The  poison  attacks  the  optic  nerve,  the  disc,  the 
retina,  the  globe,  the  cornea,  the  pupil,  the  con- 
junctiva, in  fact  all  parts  of  the  outer  organ, 
while  making  a  still  more  severe  attack  upon 
the  corresponding  brain  centers.  Even  small 
doses  of  alcohol  may  produce  results,  tempo- 
rary or  permanent,  taking  many  forms  such  as 
colour  blindness,  partial  or  total,  short-sighted- 
ness, loss  of  accuracy  and  precision,  as  in  sight- 
ing a  rifle.  Larger  doses  frequently  produce 
visual  hallucinations  and  delusions  with  con- 
fusion of  colours  and  forms,  flying  and  floating 
objects.  In  delirium  tremens  referred  to  above, 
the  victim  will  often  see  loathsome  things 
crawling  toward  him  and  other  terrifying  forms 
threatening  him. 

Hearing,  Taste  and  Smell  are  all  deranged  by 
alcohol,  though  to  a  less  degree.  The  outer 
organs  are  not  so  much  affected  as  the  brain 
centers.  Cases  arise  where  strange  sounds  are 
heard,  voices,  bells,  whistles,  rushing  wind, 
booming  cannon  and  other  hallucinations  of 
these  senses. 

The  general  psychic  effect  of  alcoholic  de- 
rangement of  the  senses  is  to  create  an  un- 
natural world  in  which  the  mind's  interpreta- 
tion of  natural  phenomena  is  inaccurate  and 


76      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

unreliable,  and  in  which  the  foundation  is  laid 
for  the  higher  derangement  of  the  will,  the 
morals,  the  character. 

Alcohol  and  Memory. 

Alcohol  injures  the  perceptions  not  only  in 
their  nature  but  also  in  their  intensity,  there- 
fore weakening  the  mind's  power  of  retention, 
reproduction,  and  recognition.  This  loss  of 
intensity  or  depth  of  impression,  and  consequent 
loss  of  memory,  is  the  result,  not  only  of  the 
inefficiency  of  the  end  organs  and  nerve  fibers 
in  producing  and  transmitting  nerve  communi- 
cations, and  of  the  inelasticity  of  the  brain  in 
receiving  impressions,  but  is  also  due  to  the 
lack  of  available  nervous  energy  resulting  from 
general  nerve  disturbances  due  to  the  depleted 
and  impoverished  condition  of  the  blood.  To 
these  must  be  added  weakened  capacities  of  con- 
centration and  attention,  both  spontaneous  and 
voluntary,  due  to  alcoholic  disintegrations  of 
the  brain  centers  through  which  they  operate. 
Efficient  memory  involves  a  high  state  of  co- 
operation between  all  the  nerve-cells  of  the 
brain  centers  involved. 

Alcohol,  in  contracting  or  destroying  some  or 
all  of  the  branches  or  dendrites  through  which 
the  cells  communicate  with  each  other,  thus 
undermines  the  power  of  reproduction.  The 
loss  affects  not  only  the  power  to  reproduce  a 
single  idea,  but  also  to  associate  ideas.  The 
general  disuse  thus  entailed  upon  many  brain 
cells  tends  to  produce  atrophy  and  decay,  and 


A  HABIT-FOEMING  DKUG  77 

there  is  no  renewal.  Impressions  are  thus  en- 
tirely lost.  The  ideas  and  associations  of  ideas 
that  can  be  reproduced  become  fewer  in  number, 
until  an  alcoholic  ends  with  only  one  central 
idea  and  purpose  about  which  everything  else 
revolves — to  get  and  consume  the  drug  that 
has  enslaved  him. 

The  elements  of  memory  involved  in  recogni- 
tion are  more  complex  than  those  involved  in 
perception,  retention,  and  reproduction,  entail- 
ing an  intellectual  process  of  judgment  and  a 
state  of  self -consciousness ;  consequently  the 
derangement  of  alcoholism  here  is  more  marked 
and  more  complicated.  Sometimes  things  per- 
ceived previously  are  not  recognized  and  things 
never  perceived  are  supposed  to  be  recognized. 
This  is  why  the  testimony  of  an  alcoholic  is 
unreliable.  It  is  so  not  merely  because  of  his 
moral  deficiencies,  one  of  which  is  lack  of 
loyalty  to  the  truth;  but  also  because  of  his 
lack  of  ability  to  recognize  what  is  true.  A 
normal  person  sometimes  thinks  he  has  had  an 
experience  when  reason  tells  him  it  is  impossi- 
ble, that  it  must  have  been  a  dream.  The  alco- 
holic has  these  delusions  more  frequently  and 
in  exaggerated  form  and  lacks  the  reason  to 
judge  or  distinguish  between  fact  and  fancy. 
He  is  consequently  living  in  a  world  of  delu- 
sions, unable  to  realize  that  his  imagined  ex- 
periences are  unreal.  He  lives  in  an  abnormal 
state  where  things  really  remembered  are  con- 
fused with  things  only  dreamed  or  imagined. 

The  order  of  losses  in  memory  due  to  alcohol, 


78      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

as  from  other  derangements  in  general,  is  in  the 
reverse  of  the  order  of  perception,  the  oldest 
experiences  being  the  last  to  go  and  the  latest 
impressions  being  the  first  forgotten.  A  pur- 
pose or  association  of  recent  origin  is  more  apt 
to  be  quickly  forgotten.  A  resolve  of  an  alco- 
holic is  usually  unstable  and  often  lightly  made. 
The  impression  it  produces  in  his  brain  is 
superficial  and  the  memory  of  it  fleeting.  The 
high-order  nerve-cells  and  connections  involved 
are  so  poisoned  and  wasted  by  disease  that  they 
cannot  function  efficiently,  if  at  all,  and  are  in- 
capacitated either  for  receiving  deep  new  im- 
pressions or  renewing  in  dynamic  power  former 
ones  once  registered  in  the  now  disorganized  and 
depleted  upper  brain.  This  inevitable  loss  of 
memory  with  the  alcoholic  is  fundamental.  It 
nullifies  restraints  that  might  otherwise  cause 
a  halt  and  leads  to  increased  slavery  to  the 
drug. 

With  the  alcoholic  the  memory  of  events  goes 
first,  then  of  ideas,  then  of  emotions,  then  of  his 
own  actions.  Finally  he  loses  his  vocabulary. 
As  the  phenomena  of  the  intellect  and  its  edifice 
of  reason  and  control  disappear,  the  victim  lives 
more  and  more  in  the  realm  of  emotion,  becomes 
more  and  more  dominated  by  feelings,  the  finer 
steadily  declining  and  giving  way  to  the  coarser, 
more  elemental  and  brutal.  This  facilitates 
other  drug  habits  and  all  forms  of  conduct 
typical  of  degeneracy. 

The  effects  on  the  "  moderate  "  drinker  nat- 
urally are  not  so  pronounced  as  on  the  con- 


A  HABIT-FOBMING  DEUG  79 

firmed  alcoholic,  but  in  a  general  way  they  are 
proportional  to  the  amount  or  degree  of  his 
drinking,  though  he  himself  may  never  realize 
this.  The  constant  searing  of  memory  and  self- 
consciousness  under  the  anaesthetic  may  hide 
the  progress  of  the  effects  of  the  drug  so  com- 
pletely that  the  victim  may  go  through  to  his 
death  without  ever  realizing  his  impaired 
mental  condition  even  though  he  reach  a  con- 
dition of  acute  or  even  chronic  alcoholism. 

Following  the  impairment  of  the  senses  and 
of  memory,  through  alcoholic  poisoning  of  the 
nerve-cells  and  their  connections  and  the  drug's 
injury  to  life  functions,  comes  the  undermining 
of  the  higher  intellectual  powers — the  power  of 
the  imagination  to  reproduce  and  construct,  and 
the  more  complex  powers  of  thought,  such  as 
the  power  to  conceive,  judge  and  reason. 

Alcohol  and  Imagination. 

The  effect  upon  imagination  is  characteristic. 
The  early  congestion  of  the  brain  causes  a  feel- 
ing of  exhilaration,  as  if  the  imagination  were 
released  from  ordinary  restraints.  Many  a 
drinker  takes  his  glass  as  a  "  bracer  "  in  prepa- 
ration for  an  intellectual  effort.  An  analysis 
of  the  imagery  which  follows,  however  rich  it 
may  appear  to  the  imaginer  himself,  shows  it 
to  be  abnormal,  lacking  in  balance  and  co- 
ordination, and  of  a  low  order  in  general  inclin- 
ing toward  coarseness  and  vulgarity.  The 
permanent  injury  inflicted  by  the  poison,  the 


80      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

increased  fear  and  timidity  and  loss  of  self- 
confidence,  make  the  drinker  feel  more  in  need 
of  his  "  bracer  "  the  next  time,  when  the  dose 
will  have  to  be  larger  and  more  concentrated 
than  before  in  order  to  make  him  feel  the  same 
sense  of  "  exhilaration."  This  illustrates  the 
general  course  of  all  habit-forming  drugs. 

The  greatest  loss  that  the  individual  and 
collective  intellect  sustains  through  alcohol  is 
in  aborted  creative  imagination,  the  power  most 
valuable  to  the  individual,  most  precious  to 
society,  and  for  which  special  supplies  of 
nerve  energy  are  required.  The  drinker  can- 
not control  the  direction  of  his  imagination, 
cannot  "  picture  "  things  at  will,  cannot  start 
with  foundations  and  construct  an  edifice  of 
thought.  Yet  it  is  vain  to  point  out  to  him  the 
ultimate  consequences  of  his  habit.  The  loss 
of  intellectual  grasp  and  of  the  imaginative 
faculty,  together  with  the  impairment  of  reason, 
make  it  impossible  for  him  properly  to  weigh 
the  ultimate  consequences  of  his  conduct.  He 
will  readily  do  things  irrational  and  sinful  be- 
cause he  cannot  wholly  realize  their  con- 
sequences. We  see  here  the  foundation  for 
much  of  the  crime  and  immorality  of  the  world. 
The  field  of  an  alcoholized  imagination  steadily 
grows  narrower  and  descends  toward  the  brute, 
and  gets  more  and  more  beyond  control,  till,  for 
him,  the  universe  becomes  focused  in  his  habit, 
and  about  this  he  is  still  able  to  construct  cun- 
ning combinations  of  deception,  especially  for 
getting  the  drug. 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DRUG  81 

Alcohol  and  Thinking. 

This  degradation  by  alcohol  of  the  power  of 
imagination  is  repeated  and  deepened  in  those 
more  complex  processes  of  thinking  which  re- 
quire not  only  soundness  and  efficiency  of  all 
parts  of  the  brain,  but  the  perfect  coordination 
and  harmony  of  the  whole.  The  power  of  con- 
centration rapidly  declines  with  the  decline  in 
ability  to  generate  nerve  energy,  and  from  this 
inevitably  follows  a  falling  off  in  the  ability  to 
conceive  clearly,  to  judge  soundly,  and  to  reason 
correctly,  manifesting  in  its  earlier  stages  a 
general  habit  of  indecision.  The  performance 
of  routine  work  may  go  on  fairly  well  for  a 
while,  but  the  weak-minded  alcoholic  goes  to 
pieces  when  new  and  unforeseen  responsibilities 
and  contingencies  arise  requiring  individual 
judgment,  decision,  action.  His  befuddled  in- 
tellect is  not  able  to  rise  and  master  the  situa- 
tion. Man  created  with  immortality  and  a 
dominant  power  of  spirit  thus  becomes  the  slave 
instead  of  the  master  of  circumstance.  This  is 
the  origin  of  the  practice,  now  becoming  general 
in  industry  and  big  business,  to  promote  total 
abstainers  only,  leaving  the  drinker  to  gravitate 
to  the  lowest  positions.  Even  temperate  drink- 
ers in  some  cases  are  not  excepted  from  this  rule 
of  the  business  world. 

With  continuing  drink,  efficiency  in  carrying 
on  routine  work  even  of  a  low  order  gradually 
declines,  and  with  efficiency,  reliability  also. 
Drinkers  thus  find  it  harder  and  harder  to  get 
positions  and  keep  them ;  they  have  less  and  less 


82      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

desire  to  work.  That  is  why  alcohol  is  the 
primary  cause  of  the  bulk  of  the  pauperism  of 
the  world,1  as  it  is  of  irregularity,  inefficiency 
and  accidents  in  industry.2 

In  matters  relating  to  morals  and  religion, 
the  powers  of  conception  and  judgment  suffer 
first.  Eight  and  wrong,  truth  and  falsehood 
have  no  clear  line  of  separation  for  the  con- 
firmed alcoholic.  Brutality  supersedes  gentle- 
ness, selfishness  supplants  self-sacrifice.  Thus 
the  drinker  gradually  becomes  unfitted  for 
civilized  society  and  intercourse.8  Yet  he  has 
not  the  mental  power  to  recognize  and  realize 
this  fact,  but  continues  egotistical,  vulgar, 
brazen,  without  respect  for  man,  without  fear 
or  reverence  for  God.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
picture  the  awful  cup  of  sorrow  this  puts  to  the 
lips  of  women  and  children,  placed  in  intimate 
association  with  drinkers. 

Alcohol  and  Reason. 

The  still  higher  intellectual  process  of  rea- 
soning not  only  demands  sustained  voluntary 
attention  upon  the  matter  in  hand  but  the  power 
of  inhibition  to  exclude  foreign  and  irrelevant 

1  Pringle.  Committee  of  Fifty.  Warner,  Booth,  De- 
vine,  Elizabeth  Tilton,  Rowntree.  Massachusetts  Bureau 
of  Labour  Statistics. 

2  Crothers,  Booth,  Bureau  of  Builders  Union  Zurich, 
Sick  Benefit  Club  Leipsic,  Steel  Workers,  Voeklingen, 
Germany. 

8  Kraepelin,  Kurz,  Fuerer,  Smith,  Aschaffenburg,  Exner, 
Rosanoff  brothers. 


<* 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DEUG  83 

matter.  Under  the  attack  of  the  alcohol  poison 
upon  the  brain  cells  and  their  connections,  upon 
their  nutrition,  oxidation  and  excretion,  the 
power  required  for  this  highest  intellectual 
process  cannot  be  adequately  generated.  The 
reasoning  produced  is  of  a  low  order,  cannot  be 
controlled,  and  flows  automatically  into  the  few 
mental  channels  kept  open  by  constant  alcoholic 
indulgence.  Ultimately  all  the  rudimentary 
reasoning  capacity  left  is  focused  and  expended 
upon  the  one  practice  of  procuring  and  imbibing 
drink. 

The  order  of  decline  of  the  intellectual  powers 
is  the  same  as  the  general  order  cited  above, 
the  higher  and  more  complex  first,  reason,  con- 
structive imagination,  judgment,  conception, 
and  reproductive  imagination;  while  the  power 
of  memory  suffers  steadily  and  continuously 
throughout  all  the  various  stages. 

Alcohol  and  the  Will. 

The  Will  more  than  any  other  power  of  the 
mind  determines  the  character  and  fate  of  the 
individual,  as  well  as  his  influence  upon  society. 
Alcohol  in  attacking  the  "temple,"  strikes  at 
the  indwelling  "  spirit."  Since  will  is  the 
highest,  most  delicate  and  complex  power  of 
mind,  the  latest  evolved,  an  injury  to  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  brain  by  such  a  poison  necessarily 
produces  its  maximum  harm  to  the  will. 

The  exercise  of  the  will  requires  and  presup- 
poses memory.  As  pointed  out  above,  memory 
is  quickly  impaired  by  the  action  of  alcohol  on 


84      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

the  nerve-cells  and  connections.  It  was  there 
stated  that  memory  declines  in  an  inverse  order 
of  the  events  producing  it,  so  the  memories  of 
immaturity  linger  longest,  the  memories  of 
youth  when  the  will  itself  was  undeveloped. 
Consequently,  in  an  alcoholic,  the  ends  or  ideals 
of  will  gradually  contract  to  those  of  youth  or 
even  childhood,  until  the  only  end  or  purposes 
remaining  are  those  which  center  upon  gratify- 
ing appetite.  It  is  vain  to  expect  the  victim 
to  be  \  cognizant  of  high  ideals,  of  love,  duty, 
home,  country,  God. 

Furthermore,  the  normal  act  of  willing  is 
preceded  by  an  intellectual  process  of  delibera- 
tion, requiring  voluntary  attention  and  con- 
centration, judgment,  and  reasoning.  As  the 
power  of  voluntary  control  of  the  mental  proc- 
esses declines,  the  actions  naturally  spring  more 
and  more  from  feelings  and  impulses,  which, 
though  steadily  weakened  themselves,  do  not 
subside  until  much  later  in  the  mind's  disin- 
tegration. The  loss  of  voluntary  control  has 
its  own  natural  order  of  decline,  first  of  ideas, 
then  of  feelings,  lastly  of  muscles. 

When  voluntary  control  is  gone,  capricious 
ideas  may  suddenly  come  and  go,  but  at  last 
impulses  alone  control  the  alcoholic's  actions. 
Just  what  these  impulses  may  be  cannot  be 
stated  without  a  knowledge  of  the  individual, 
but  they  will  usually  revolve  around  his  drug- 
master.  Appetite  and  habit  hold  the  reins. 
In  earlier  stages  there  may  be  some  slight  con- 
trol left  to  turn  the  action  into  other  channels 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DRUG  86 

and  arouse  opposing  influences,  a  saving  re- 
course for  a  normal  person  in  time  of  tempta- 
tion; but  later  it  becomes  impossible  for  the 
alcoholic  to  turn  his  attention  away  from  his 
master  and  only  one  set  of  impulses  remains. 
Appetite  and  habit  then  reign  as  supreme  con- 
querors. 

The  exercise  of  the  will  in  volition  requires 
the  generation  of  nerve  energy  as  well  as  the 
discharge  of  this  energy  in  the  particular  chan- 
nels decided  upon  by  the  reason.  The  poison- 
ing effect  of  alcohol  not  only  takes  away  pro- 
gressively the  power  to  control  and  discharge 
nervous  energy,  but  impairs  the  very  power  to 
generate  it  and  breaks  down  the  faculty  of  judg- 
ment by  which  the  energy  would  be  directed 
into  proper  channels.  At  certain  stages  the 
drinker  may  still  be  able  to  recognize  what  he 
should  do  and  may  try  his  best  to  control  his 
habit  and  conduct,  but  all  in  vain.  The  nerve 
fatigue  caused  by  the  poison  makes  it  impossible 
to  generate  sufficient  nerve  energy  for  effective 
volition  and  will  power. 

In  the  light  of  the  poisoning  effect  of  alcohol 
upon  the  brain  centers,  its  disintegration  of  the 
physical  bases  of  the  capacities  which  compose 
the  will  and  the  reason,  it  is  futile  to  talk  of 
self-control  and  temperance  to  confirmed  drink- 
ers. Self-control  and  temperance  are  ideals  to 
be  striven  for  by  all  men  at  all  times,  but  the 
alcoholic  has  not  the  power  to  strive  even  when 
he  has  the  desire.  The  only  alternative,  mani- 
festly, is  to  segregate  the  poison,  and  thus,  as  a 


86      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

public  policy,  the  complete  prohibition,  not  the 
regulation,  of  the  beverage  liquor  traffic  must 
be  one  of  the  fundamental  means  of  breaking 
from  mankind  the  tyranny  of  this  drug  which 
enslaves  so  many  of  the  most  nobly  endowed 
men. 

If  we  recall  that  under  regular,  continued 
drinking,  even  though  "  temperate,"  memory  is 
impaired,  and  the  scope  of  thoughts,  objects, 
and  purposes,  instead  of  expanding,  is  contract- 
ing, and  that  the  intellectual  processes  of  delib- 
eration, voluntary  attention,  concentration  and 
reasoning  steadily  weaken  while  action  springs 
increasingly  from  impulse  and  individual 
caprice; — if  we  remember  that  the  power  to 
choose  declines  with  the  power  to  deliberate; 
that  through  the  constant  narrowing  of  the 
fields  of  intellectual  interest  and  aim  a  con- 
firmed alcoholic's  desires  become  abnormal  and 
turn  chiefly  to  drink ;  that  though  an  enfeebled 
desire  to  reform  should  arise  in  him  there  is  a 
dearth  of  energy  to  transmute  desire  into  ef- 
fective will ;  that  the  physical  conditions  neces- 
sary to  the  functions  and  life  of  the  brain  and 
nerve  cells  essential  to  high  self-determination 
are  completely  deranged,  we  must  conclude  that 
the  victim  of  alcohol  is  no  longer  a  real  man, 
but  stands  bereft  of  power  to  will, — a  slave,  and 
the  most  abject  of  all  slaves. 

The  Psychology  of  Alcoholic  Craving. 
With  the  progressive  decline  of  the  power  of 
self-control  and  the  capacity  of  will,  the  drinker 


A  HABIT-FOKMING  DKUG  87 

is  progressively  at  the  mercy  of  his  impulses. 
As  the  first  effect  of  the  anaesthetic  is  the  numb- 
ing of  the  higher  centers  of  control  and  inhibi- 
tion, the  lower  activities,  the  elemental  im- 
pulses, and  j>assions  are  released,  producing  a 
false  feeling  of  stimulation,  of  well-being,  even 
of  ecstasy,  and  so  satisfying  the  intoxication  im- 
pulse and  motive.  With  the  loss  of  the  power 
of  proportion,  of  judgment,  and  of  reason,  the 
feeling  of  self-importance  rises,  satisfying  the 
natural,  inherent,  elemental  egotism,  and  pro- 
moting a  false  feeling  of  sociability.  As 
anaesthesia  progresses,  the  feeling  of  exhilara- 
tion is  succeeded  by  an  oblivion,  in  which  the 
cares,  sorrows,  tribulations,  and  responsibilities 
of  life  are  forgotten,  satisfying  the  narcotic 
impulse  and  natural  longing  for  rest.  But  all 
with  the  most  debasing  and  ruinous  con- 
sequences ! 

The  exhilaration-intoxication  motive  has  its 
special  appeal  to  youth,  to  young  and  rising 
nations  and  races,  and  to  the  upper  strata  of 
society.  The  narcotic-oblivion  motive  has  an 
appeal  for  the  old  and  weary.  It  lures  the  de- 
cadent nations  and  races,  the  lower,  submerged 
strata  of  society.  There  is  an  appeal  to  the 
strong,  and  an  appeal  to  the  weak.  These  mo- 
tives and  impulses,  universal  with  humanity, 
and  each  of  which  has  a  legitimate  answer  in 
life,  are  thus  baited  with  false  and  destructive 
satisfactions  until  they  become  the  agencies  of 
physical  and  spiritual  ruin. 

In  progressive  drinking,  both  classes  of  sensa- 


88      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

tions  are  experienced  by  the  drinker.  Both  are 
highly  pleasurable,  the  anaesthesia  preventing 
every  feeling  of  pain  or  even  of  discomfort  from 
the  poisoning,  and  hushing  every  warning  of 
nature.  After  the  debauch,  when  the  drinker 
comes  out  from  under  the  anaesthetic,  depres- 
sion, discomfort,  and  pain  set  in  as  a  result  of 
the  poison.  Then  the  narcotic  motive  to  seek 
relief  in  further  drinking  becomes  compelling. 
In  the  case  of  this,  as  of  other  habit-forming 
drugs,  it  requires  progressively  larger  doses  to 
produce  the  same  sensation  of  exhilaration  or 
oblivion,  while  the  depression  and  pain  that  fol- 
low grow  proportionately  and  enlarge  the  crav- 
ing for  drink. 

Without  a  scientific  knowledge  of  the  true 
poisonous  nature  of  the  drug,  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand why  the  ancients  called  alcohol  the 
"  Water  of  Life  " ;  how  men  came  to  look  upon 
it  as  a  source  of  strength  and  inspiration;  how 
peoples  all  over  the  world  have  linked  drinking 
with  family,  social,  political,  and  religious 
ceremonies;  how  it  permeated  art,  music,  gov- 
ernment and  religion  in  all  lands  and  in  all 
ages.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  a  monopoly 
of  the  drink  supply  has  proved  an  easy  source 
of  revenue  to  dealers  and  governments,  and  has 
deeply,  though  uneconomically,  rooted  the 
liquor  traffic  in  the  fiscal  policies  of  the  world. 

The  Alcohol  Habit. 

With  many  of  the  educated  and  well  in- 
formed, the  liquor  interests  are  yet  able  to  main- 


A  HABIT-FORMING  DRUG  89 

tain  that  it  is  the  "  excessive  "  use  that  causes 
harm,  depression,  weakness,  while  "  temperate  " 
use  produces  only  pleasure,  exhilaration, 
strength  and  well-being.  The  whole  drink 
habit  feeds  upon  temperate  drinking.  Study- 
ing the  effect  of  alcohol  from  the  standpoint  of 
pathology  and  psychology,  it  is  evident  that 
each  drink  increases  or  exaggerates  the  con- 
ditions which  lead  to  further  drinking,  enhances 
the  motives  for  drink  and  the  appetite  and 
craving  for  it,  while  weakening  the  will  and 
impairing  the  forces  which  oppose  and  control 
drinking — memory,  intellect,  judgment,  reason, 
moral  sensitiveness  and  all  the  spiritual  attri- 
butes of  manhood.  Every  time  a  man  takes  a 
drink,  he  becomes  a  little  less  of  a  man. 


ni 

ALCOHOL  THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OP 
DEGENEEACY 

AS  far  as  the  knowledge  of  man  extends, 
the  universe  is  undergoing  constant 
change.  It  is  of  two  kinds:  processes 
of  building  or  evolution,  and  processes  of  decay 
or  disintegration.  Some  planetary  systems, 
suns  and  worlds  are  forming.  Others  are  dis- 
integrating. 

In  the  realm  of  living  things  these  changes 
are  more  advanced,  complex,  and  varied  than 
are  the  atomic  and  geological  changes  in  the 
inorganic  world.  In  the  animal  kingdom  the 
changes  are  more  advanced,  complex,  and  va- 
ried than  in  the  plant  kingdom.  In  the  division 
of  the  vertebrates,  animals  with  a  backbone,  the 
changes  are  more  advanced,  complex,  and  varied 
than  in  the  division  of  the  invertebrates,  animals 
without  a  backbone.  Mammals,  animals  that 
suckle  their  young,  are  the  highest  in  evolution 
of  the  vertebrates,  and  man  is  the  highest  of 
the  mammals. 

In  man,  the  highest  evolutionary  forces  are 
the  consciousness  of  God,  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  love,  self-sacrifice,  self-control,  and  the 
sense  of  duty. 

As  pointed  out  in  previous  chapters,  an  ele- 
mental substance,  protoplasm,  composed  largely 
of  water  and  protein,  composes  the  physical 

90 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OP  DEGENEKACY    91 

machinery  of  all  life  and  of  the  evolution  of  all 
life  in  plants,  animals  and  man.  Since  alcohol 
attacks  this  elemental  protoplasm,  drawing  out 
the  water  and  clotting  or  coagulating  the  pro- 
tein, its  effect  is  to  tear  down  cell  complexes  and 
force  them  back  toward  simpler  forms  and  so 
stop  further  evolution  and  prematurely  pre- 
cipitate the  processes  of  dissolution. 

In  the  study  of  alcoholic  poisoning  from  the 
standpoint  of  biology,  we  noted  this  alcoholic 
dissolution  in  single  cells,  more  marked  in  the 
nucleus  and  complex  bodies  around  the  nucleus, 
the  highest,  tenderest  portion  and  the  latest  in 
the  cell's  evolution.  In  the  physiological  and 
pathological  divisions  we  pointed  out  the  same 
effect  of  alcohol  on  tissues  and  organs,  finding 
it  most  marked  in  the  central  nervous  system, 
particularly  in  the  neurons  of  the  upper  brain, 
the  operating  zone  of  spiritual  evolution  where 
the  physical  fabric  of  the  capacities  distinguish- 
ing man  from  the  brutes  is  in  process  of  growth 
and  development.  The  sociological  effects  are 
similar.  The  finest  and  best  things  in  organized 
society  are  the  first  affected  and  the  most 
deranged.  In  every  case  where  alcohol  is  ap- 
plied to  life  it  tends  to  stop  further  evolution, 
to  tear  down  the  highest  results  of  previous 
development  and  evolution  and  put  life  back  on 
a  lower  plane.  It  reverses  the  building  proc- 
ess— the  foundation  principle  of  life.  It  pre- 
cipitates dissolution,  and  premature  death,  or 
leads  to  restricted  development.  Eeliable 
scientific  research  in  all  parts  of  the  world  is 


92      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

harmonious  in  the  finding  that  ethyl  alcohol  is 
thus  a  specific  and  certain  cause  of  degeneracy. 

Alcoholic  Emotions. 

We  have  recounted  the  progressively  de- 
generating effect  of  alcohol  upon  the  intellect 
and  will,  but  the  process  in  the  whole  man  is 
best  tested  and  observed  in  the  transformation 
of  the  emotions,  both  temporarily  as  a  single 
debauch  proceeds,  and  permanently  as  the 
drinking  becomes  chronic.  This  is  a  true  test 
because,  in  a  general  way,  man  may  be  said  to 
possess  in  some  state,  active  or  latent,  the  emo- 
tions corresponding  to  all  the  stages  of  his 
evolution. 

Any  study  of  the  changes  and  transforma- 
tions of  the  emotions  must  take  due  account  of 
the  condition  of  the  body  and  organs,  and  the 
interaction  between  the  physical  condition  and 
the  emotions.  The  effect  of  emotions  in  causing 
disease  is  well  known,  but  not  so  well,  the 
equally  potent  effect  of  disease,  even  fatigue, 
upon  the  emotions. 

In  intoxication  the  paralysis  of  the  center  of 
inhibition  and  control  leaves  the  emotions  un- 
restrained, thus  exalting  them  above  the  higher 
faculties.  This  result,  which  is  manifest,  even 
in  the  early  stages  of  drinking,  constitutes  the 
basis  for  "  Sociability  "  attributed  to  the  cup. 
Incoherence,  lack  of  plan  or  objective,  uncer- 
tainty, and  unreliability,  accompany  this  ex- 
altation of  emotions  which  themselves  may  vary 
widely  between  individuals,  and  in  the  same 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENEBACY    93 

individuals  may  shift  and  change  suddenly 
without  logical  cause,  though  the  general  trend 
and  final  ending  are  the  same  for  all.  The 
moral  and  spiritual  emotions,  the  latest  and 
highest  in  human  evolution,  do  not  partake  of 
this  general  exaltation,  but  are  dulled  from  the 
start.  As  a  result,  the  emotions  characterized 
by  genuine  altruism  and  self-abnegation  are 
outrun  by  those  connected  with  self-interest 
and  egotism;  so  the  general  trend  is  from  the 
man  toward  the  brute. 

The  abatement  of  the  guiding  hand  of  con- 
science, of  principle,  and  of  ideals,  and  the  un- 
bridling of  the  passions  leave  the  field  clear  for 
self-indulgence,  jealousy,  suspicion,  anger, 
hatred,  lust  and  avarice,  and  fling  wide  the 
doors  to  acts  of  injustice,  cruelty,  immorality 
and  crime.  In  deep  intoxication  and  advanced 
alcoholism,  the  anaesthesia  or  paralysis,  accom- 
panied by  malnutrition,  overtakes  even  the 
lower  emotions,  the  last  to  fade  being  the  first 
acquired — namely,  those  associated  with  self- 
preservation  in  the  individual  and  the  species, 
fear  seeming  to  be  the  most  persistent  of  all 
the  emotions,  flaring  up  even  in  paroxysms 
which  become  acute  in  delirium  tremens. 

The  progressive  loss  of  memory  accentuates 
the  general  effects,  and  introduces  an  element 
of  uncertainty.  In  general  the  memory  of 
emotions  outlasts  the  memory  of  events,  the 
emotions  of  earlier  years  remaining  after  those 
of  later  years  have  passed  away.  In  the  end, 
childish   emotions   alone   remain,    and   chiefly 


94      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

those  associated  with  pain,  which  are  the  ones 
that  have  made  the  deepest  impression. 

The  malnutrition  and  general  derangement 
and  steady  disintegration  of  tissues  and  organs 
likewise  accentuate  the  emotional  effects  of 
alcohol,  especially  in  the  later  stages,  producing 
irritability,  depression,  despondency,  morose- 
ness,  the  emotions  in  turn  inciting  to  further 
drinking  for  relief,  only  to  increase  the  condi- 
tion of  morbidness.  The  degeneracy,  as  it 
gradually  progresses,  permanently  transforms 
the  emotions  from  those  of  a  civilized  man  to 
those  of  the  savage  and  the  brute,  and  brings  the 
greatest  woe  to  individuals,  the  greatest  trag- 
edies to  families,  and  the  most  serious  prob- 
lems to  the  State  and  organized  society. 

Alcohol  and  Morals. 

The  moral  sense  is  late  in  evolution.  In  the 
earlier,  lower  stages  it  is  intimately  associated 
with  the  motive  of  escape  from  pain  or  punish- 
ment, it  is  simply  a  part  of  the  elemental  motive 
of  self-preservation.  Education  and  develop- 
ment through  punishment  and  penalty  are  thus 
essential  parts  of  every  system  or  code  of  laws, 
civil  and  religious.  In  later  stages,  the  sense 
of  obligation,  the  "  ought "  feeling,  prevails ;  in 
the  latest  and  highest  stages  of  evolution  con- 
science and  the  sense  of  duty  rooted  in  love  be- 
come the  guiding  princij>les  in  man's  life,  laying 
the  foundation  of  enduring  civilizations.1 

1  Aschaffenburg,  Lombroso,  Sullivan,  Hoppe,  Ferrero, 
Bianchi,  Paolo,  Amaldi,  Baer,  Bunge. 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENEKACY    95 

On  the  stage  or  in  fiction  the  first  act  presag- 
ing a  moral  lapse  is  a  drink ;  the  anthor  knows 
that  the  public  will  then  recognize  as  natural 
even  the  most  sudden  and  radical  change  in 
moral  conduct.  Instigators  to  crime  could  not 
exist  without  liquor,  their  principal  instrument. 
The  whiteslaver  will  disappear  with  the  liquor 
traffic. 

As  drinking  on  a  single  occasion  is  recognized 
as  an  explanation  for  temporary  moral  lapses, 
so  habitual  drinking  is  recognized  as  the  cause 
and  explanation  of  the  disintegration  of  moral 
character  and  the  criminal  career  which  fol- 
lows. 

This  result  is  due  not  only  to  the  fact  that  the 
"  still  small  voice  "  is  silenced  by  the  tumult 
caused  by  alcohol,  and  that  the  young,  tender 
nerve  tissue  associated  with  the  higher  moral 
senses  is  quickly  paralyzed  by  the  poison,  but 
also  to  the  fact  that  the  activities  of  the  moral 
sense  are  intimately  associated  with  and  largely 
dependent  upon  the  other  faculties  of  the  mind, 
memory,  intellect,  feeling,  and  will,  and  even 
the  senses.  These  are  all  seriously  impaired  by 
alcohol,  this  derangement  being  one  of  the 
powerful,  indirect  causes  of  moral  lapses  and 
weaknesses  and  degeneracy. 

Alcoholic  Insanity  and  Pauperism. 

The  progressive  undermining  of  the  nervous 
system  by  alcohol  manifests  itself  in  various 
mental  diseases  and  forms  of  insanity,  every 
known  form  of  which  is  found  in  intoxication. 


96       ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

The  organs  of  the  body  and  the  lower  activities 
may  continue  their  usual  functions  long  after 
the  poison  has  permanently  overthrown  the 
higher  faculties  of  the  mind.  A  large  part  of 
the  backward,  the  feeble-minded,  the  imbeciles, 
the  lunatics,  of  the  world  are  now  known  to  be 
products  of  drink.1  Joined  with  their  comrade 
victims,  dependents  and  paupers,2  they  make  up 
an  increasing,  and  a  pitiful  and  tragic,  host  of 
degenerates. 

Alcoholic  Toxicology. 

In  studying  alcohol  from  the  standpoints  of 
chemistry,  biology,  and  physical  and  mental 
pathology  we  arrived  at  three  conclusions  which 
cannot  be  controverted:  First,  alcohol  is  a 
protoplasm  poison;  second,  alcohol  is  a  habit- 
forming  drug;  third,  alcohol  is  a  specific  cause 
of  degeneracy.  Let  us  now  examine  its  fruit- 
ages of  premature  death  in  individual  drinkers 
and  of  blight  and  extinction  in  their  progeny. 

In  studying  the  destructive  processes  of  the 
poison,  we  note  a  natural  classification:  First, 
the  interfering  with  health  processes,  causing 
physical  and  mental  ills,  the  undermining  of 

*Laitinen  (studied  17,400  children  in  6,000  families), 
Demme,  Bezzola,  Forel,  Andrie,  Zelm,  Legrain  Com- 
bemale,  Crothers,  Sabatier,  Mobius,  Potts,  Branthwaite, 
Sullivan,  McAdam  Eccles,  Claye  Shaw,  Bourneville, 
Wiglesworth,  Ridge. 

2  A.  G.  and  W.  S.  Warner,  Booth  (London  Survey), 
Rygg  (Norwegian  Survey),  Ridge  (Liverpool  and  Man- 
chester Records).  Convocation  of  Canterbury.  Devine, 
Rowntree  and  Sherwell,  Crothers.  Massachusetts  Bureau 
of  Labour  Statistics. 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENEBACY   97 

moral  character,  and  the  shortening  of  the  life 
of  the  individual;  second,  interference  with  re- 
production, causing  the  blight  and  possible  ex- 
tinction of  the  group.  These  are  the  two  ways 
in  which  the  curse  operates,  not  only  destroying 
individual  lives,  but  destroying  likewise  their 
capacity  to  reproduce  their  kind.  As  the  law 
governing  life  and  its  perpetuation  is  that  of 
advance,  of  buildingyof  evolution,  we  must  con- 
clude from  alcohol's  consequences  that  the  re- 
verse of  this  law,  degeneracy,  is  the  deadly  sin 
against  life,  against  nature  and  God,  and  that 
He  will  not  suffer  it  to  continue. 

Alcohol  and  the  Shortening  of  Life. 

The  shortening  of  the  life  of  an  individual 
drinker  may  result  from  either  or  both  of  two 
causes  put  in  operation  by  alcohol  poisoning: 
First,  interference  with  vital  functions ;  second, 
the  impairment  of  vital  organs,  both  causes 
naturally  operating  at  the  same  time,  hastening 
dissolution  and  precipitating  death. 

Formerly  alcohol  was  held  responsible  only 
for  those  deaths  recorded  as  due  to  "alcohol- 
ism "  and  physicians  in  a  spirit  of  charity  cov- 
ered up  most  of  these  cases,  especially  where 
chronic,  the  deaths  being  attributed  to  diseases 
or  conditions  of  which  alcohol  had  been  the 
cause.  This  was  simplified  by  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  cases  were  chronic  and  made  it 
easy  to  assign  as  the  cause  of  death  one  or  more 
of  the  attendant  ills. 

As  seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  ethyl  alcohol  is 


98      ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EAOE 

so  deadly  an  organic  poison  that  in  animals  six 
parts  of  alcohol  in  a  thousand  parts  of  blood  is 
fatal.  Five  ounces  is  the  minimum  fatal  dose. 
A  man  full  grown  and  healthy,  swallowing  a 
small  tumbler  of  alcohol,  will  be  dead  inside  of 
ten  hours.  A  man  was  once  brought  out  of  ether 
who  had  taken  eight  ounces  of  ether.  A  man 
was  once  brought  out  of  chloroform  who  had 
taken  twenty-two  and  a  half  ounces  of  chloro- 
form. No  man  ever  revived  who  had  swallowed 
five  ounces  of  alcohol. 

In  this  acute  poisoning  the  symptoms  resem- 
ble closely  those  of  poisoning  from  opium  and 
carbolic  acid.  The  earlier  stages  resemble 
those  of  poisoning  by  strychnine.  The  condition 
of  coma  is  like  that  from  ether  and  chloroform, 
though  more  dangerous.  The  stage  of  excite- 
ment passes  quickly  in  acute  cases  of  alcoholic 
poisoning.  The  face  turns  pale,  the  pupils 
dilate,  the  skin  becomes  cold,  the  temperature 
of  the  body  falls  below  normal,  the  mucous 
membranes  become  congested,  the  victim  may 
collapse  and  fall  helpless,  the  pulse  will  start 
up  quick  and  full,  then  become  slow  and  feeble, 
and  the  breathing  become  slow  and  intermittent. 
Unconsciousness  sets  in,  and  the  victim  dies 
of  paralysis  of  the  respiration.  Sometimes 
vomiting  and  involuntary  evacuation  produce 
some  relief,  though  rarely  in  case  of  a  fatal 
dose.  Consciousness  may  return  with  signs  of 
recovery,  only  to  pass  into  coma  again,  the 
victim  dying  in  convulsions,  especially  if  a 
young  person. 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGEKEBACY    99 

With  regular,  hard  drinkers,  the  heavy  doses 
bring  on  great  depression  and  a  sense  of  impend- 
ing danger,  frequently  ending  in  delirium 
tremens.  At  its  approach  the  tongue  begins 
trembling,  the  muscles  tremble  all  over  the  body 
and  a  delirium  sets  in  with  distressing  halluci- 
nations. The  victim  sees  snakes,  vipers,  spiders, 
monsters  pursuing  him,  and  sometimes  makes 
frantic  efforts  to  escape,  talking  incoherently 
and  sometimes  screaming  out  in  terror.  It  is 
the  extreme  frenzy  of  a  possessed  brain,  the 
strongest  and  earliest  acquired  human  emotion, 
fear  conjuring  up  creatures  with  which  man 
battled  in  his  earliest  experiences  on  the  planet. 

If  the  delirium  subsides  in  a  reasonable  time 
and  sleep  follows,  the  patient  recovers  after  a 
period  of  exhaustion,  nausea,  and  prolonged 
suffering,  in  which  he  will  plead  piteously  for 
the  anaesthesia  of  liquor.  Sometimes  the  victim 
falls  dead  while  in  the  delirium,  or  from  ex- 
haustion afterwards,  if  it  is  of  long  duration. 

Coma  produced  by  alcohol  is  more  obstinate 
and  dangerous  than  that  produced  by  other 
anaesthetics.  If  it  is  not  broken  within  ten  or 
twelve  hours,  death  is  practically  certain  to 
follow. 

In  chronic  alcoholic  poisoning,  the  changes 
are  those  previously  described.  Practically  all 
the  organs  and  tissues  undergo  progressive 
degeneracy,  particularly  the  central  nervous 
system.  The  symptoms  are  numerous,  dilated 
capillaries  in  the  nose  and  cheeks,  congested 
eyes,  diseased  liver,  kidneys  and  nerves.     The 


100    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  KACE 

walls  of  the  blood-vessels  become  brittle,  in  some 
cases  to  such  an  extent  that  a  slight  blow  on 
the  nose  may  bring  on  hemorrhage  of  the  brain. 
The  morbid  condition  of  the  whole  system  pro- 
duces general  depression,  often  leading  to  sui- 
cide. This  explains  why  so  many  cases  of 
suicide  are  due  to  liquor,  and  a  large  part  of 
those  attributed  to  other  causes  could  be  put 
down  to  liquor  as  the  original  or  primary  cause 
or  a  contributing  cause.  In  other  cases  pre- 
mature death  is  the  result  of  Bright's  disease, 
dropsy,  cancer,  or  another  of  the  dangerous 
maladies  which  constantly  threaten  weak  and 
disordered  organisms. 

When  a  comparatively  small  quantity  of 
alcohol  is  taken  in  regularity,  the  dissolution 
process  is  comparatively  slow,  analogous  to  the 
gradual  decline  that  sets  in  with  old  age.  The 
condition  of  the  victim  is  like  that  of  one  over- 
taken by  premature  senility,  carrying  with  it 
the  hardening  of  arteries,  the  calcification  of 
the  joints,  the  loss  of  memory,  and  practically 
all  of  the  other  symptoms  of  senility.  The 
number  of  premature  deaths  from  this  cause  is 
tremendous.  The  mortality  of  insured  men  in 
their  prime  is  practically  doubled  in  comparison 
with  the  mortality  of  the  average  insured  men 
of  corresponding  ages.1  Of  the  millions  of 
drinkers,  even  temperate  habitual  drinkers,  all 
must  surely  die  before  their  time.  These  pre- 
mature deaths  are  not  recorded  in  ordinary  mor- 
tality tables  as  due  to  alcohol,  the  real  cause. 

1Neison,  Hunter,  Phelps. 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENERACY    101 

In  addition  to  the  symptoms  of  gradual  gen- 
eral dissolution,  alcohol  in  larger  quantities 
hastens  fatty  degeneration  and  other  decay  proc- 
esses of  special  organs  of  the  body,  entailing  the 
early  failure  of  the  organ  or  of  its  vital  function. 
The  large  number  of  deaths  thus  precipitated 
are  recorded  as  due  to  the  failure  of  the  organ, 
without  mention  of  alcohol  as  the  first  and  real 
cause  of  this  failure. 

In  addition,  the  alcohol  poison  lowers  the 
vitality  of  the  whole  system.  It  destroys  the 
fighting  efficiency  of  the  phagocytes  and  anti- 
bodies which  overcome  disease  germs  and 
microbes  in  the  human  body  and  neutralize  their 
toxic  poisons.  These  dangerous  micro-organ- 
isms enter  the  system  by  way  of  the  air,  water, 
food,  the  skin,  and  the  bite  of  insects.  Investi- 
gations in  France  showed  that  more  than  half 
of  the  cases  of  consumption  investigated  were 
due  to  drink.  The  average  mortality  of  abstain- 
ing and  light  drinking  consumptives  treated  at 
Phipps  Institute  was  less  than  half  of  the  aver- 
age death  rate  of  alcoholic  consumptive  pa- 
tients. In  a  world  without  liquor  the  deaths 
from  consumption  would  fall  to  a  small  propor- 
tion of  the  present  fearful  figures. 

This  illustrates  how  far  short  of  the  facts  are 
the  estimates  formerly  made  as  to  the  number  of 
deaths  from  consumption  and  other  diseases  at- 
tributable to  alcohol,  the  highest  in  the  case  of 
consumption  having  been  previously  placed  at 
twelve  per  cent. 

What  applies  to  consumption,  applies  with 


102    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EAOE 

equal  force  to  pneumonia  and  other  germ  dis- 
eases, and  in  a  less  degree,  of  course,  to  all 
diseases. 

In  addition  to  deaths  from  disease  alcohol  is 
either  the  direct  or  indirect  cause  of  the  bulk 
of  the  great  number  of  deaths  from  violence 
through  murder,  manslaughter,  and  accidents 
in  the  industries  and  transportation. 

The  records  of  insurance  companies  which 
have  kept  separate  records  of  their  abstinent 
policy-holders  give  a  fair  indication  of  the 
startling  increase  in  mortality  in  the  popula- 
tion at  large  resulting  from  alcohol.  The  aver- 
age of  the  five  great  companies  which  have  kept 
separate  records  shows  that  the  death  claims  in 
the  general  section  have  been  eighty  per  cent, 
of  expectation,  while  those  for  the  temperate 
section  have  been  only  fifty  per  cent.  This 
would  indicate  a  three-fifths  increase  in  general 
mortality. 

If  this  percentage  were  to  be  applied  to  the 
estimated  total  mortality  of  the  United  States 
(1,427,237  in  1916)  we  would  have  an  annual 
total  of  three  hundred  and  thirty  thousand 
deaths  attributable  to  drink. 

The  figures  in  particular  cases  and  for  special 
ages  are  strikingly  serious.  A  study  of  2,000,- 
000  American  policy  holders  in  life  insurance 
companies  showed  that  among  men  who  drank 
daily  more  than  two  glasses  of  beer  or  one  glass 
of  whisky  half  as  many  again  died  as  among 
men  who  did  not  exceed  these  amounts,  both 
classes  being  considered  acceptable  insurance 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENEKACY    103 

risks.  The  first  named  class  had  an  average 
death  rate  about  eighty-six  per  cent,  higher  than 
the  average  insured  man.  Those  using  the 
equivalent  of  two  glasses  of  whisky  or  four 
glasses  of  beer  daily  during  the  working  years 
of  life,  have  a  death  rate  nearly  double  that  of 
persons  who  have  always  been  abstainers.1 
Eecords  of  British  insurance  companies  cover- 
ing a  long  period  of  years,  show  that  up  to  the 
age  of  fifty-five  the  death  rate  of  drinkers  is 
never  less  than  forty-five  per  cent,  higher  than 
that  of  abstainers,  and  that  at  some  ages  it  is 
ninety-four  per  cent,  higher  or  nearly  double.2 

The  question  rises  whether  the  insurance  com- 
panies' figures  indicating  the  difference  between 
the  mortality  of  drinkers  and  abstainers  may  be 
applied  to  the  population  at  large.  So  apply- 
ing them  may  easily  be  on  the  conservative 
side,  because  adult  males  are  the  fathers  of 
all  the  nation,  minors  and  females  included. 
The  effect  of  the  drinking  of  either  parent 
upon  the  mortality  of  the  offspring  of  both 
sexes  is  far  more  appalling  than  on  the  in- 
creased mortality  of  the  parent  whether  male 
or  female.  Investigations  of  Dr.  Laitinen, 
previously  referred  to,  showed  that  the  most 
conservative,  temperate  drinking  of  not  more 
than  one  glass  of  mild  beer  per  day  in  investi- 
gated families  quadrupled  the  chances  of  mis- 
carriage and  still-births  and  nearly  doubled  the 
number  that  died  the  first  year.  These  investi- 
gations showed  that  where  both  parents  were 

1  Hunter.  a  Newsholme  in  Horsley  and  Sturge. 


104    ALCOHOL  AETD  THE  HUMAN  KACE 

total  abstainers,  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  children 
were  normally  vigorous,  whereas,  with  both  par- 
ents alcoholic,  only  one  out  of  six  was  normal. 
Investigations  of  Dr.  Demme  at  Berne,  Switzer- 
land, showed  that  up  to  the  age  of  five,  five 
times  as  many  children  died  who  had  drinking 
parents  as  of  children  who  had  abstaining  par- 
ents. 

Furthermore,  the  direct  ravages  of  liquor  are 
not  confined  to  adults.  The  records  of  Bellevue 
Hospital,  New  York,  show  that  sixty-eight  per 
cent,  of  the  drinkers  investigated  there  con- 
tracted the  habit  before  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
thirty  per  cent,  before  the  age  of  sixteen,  and 
seven  per  cent,  before  the  age  of  twelve. 

After  viewing  these  gruesome  facts,  who  can 
doubt  that  alcohol  is  the  great  scourge,  in- 
flicting more  premature  deaths  upon  the  race 
than  all  other  causes  combined? 

Alcohol  as  a  Blighter  of  Offspring. 

Appalling  as  is  the  effect  of  alcohol  in  the 
shortening  of  human  life,  the  distorting  and 
withering  blights  it  accomplishes  on  and  by  the 
germ  plasm  are  truly  terrifying.  They  are 
abundant  proof  that  God  will  not  be  mocked 
nor  the  universe  upset.  In  return  for  the  gift 
of  life,  nature  exacts  from  living  organisms  co- 
operation in  the  great  purpose  of  progressing 
and  developing  each  in  its  own  line.  For  co- 
operation nature  bestows  in  return  health, 
strength,  long  life,  and  increase  of  offspring. 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGENEEACY    105 

As  a  corollary  it  is  not  reasonable  to  expect 
nature  to  permit  degeneracy  to  inherit  the 
earth;  and  since  nature  impresses  the  line  of 
evolution  most  deeply  upon  the  germ  plasm,  the 
chromatin,  the  carrier  of  heredity,  we  should 
expect  a  specific  cause  of  degeneracy  to  make 
its  most  violent,  disruptive  attack  upon  the 
germ  plasm.  Experience  and  investigation 
indicate  terrible  and  far-reaching  results  due  to 
the  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  germ  plasm. 

Comparatively  small  quantities  of  alcohol  in- 
terfere with  and  interrupt  the  seeding  and  ger- 
mination of  plants.1  The  blighting  effect  upon 
the  multiplying  process  is  even  more  striking  in 
the  low  orders  of  animal  life.2  Kigidly  con- 
ducted, scientific  experiments  with  mammals, 
dealing  with  large  numbers  and  extending  over 
many  generations,  have  startled  the  scientific 
world  by  their  proof  of  the  frightfully  destruc- 
tive effects  of  alcohol  upon  reproduction  and 
progeny.  The  same  general  effects  have  been 
found  in  investigations  in  the  human  species,  as 
was  naturally  to  be  expected. 

It  will  suffice  to  cite  the  experiments  of 
the  Cornell  Medical  College  conducted  by 
Dr.  Stockard  on  guinea  pigs.  Large  num- 
bers and  many  generations  were  involved  in  the 
experiments.  These  show  startling  results.  A 
pair,  mated  and  shown  to  be  normal  in  repro- 
duction and  normal  in  every  way,  was  experi- 

1  Ridge. 

8  Fere,  Palazzi,  Ridge,  Detcher,  Cowles,  Arlett,  Hodge, 
Raymond,  Pearl,  Rauber. 


106    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

mented  on  by  treating  with  the  fumes  of  alco- 
hol. For  instance,  one  only,  say  the  male,  was 
treated  once  a  day  and  the  treatment  stopped 
short  of  the  point  of  intoxication,  corresponding 
more  or  less  to  the  alcoholic  condition  of  a 
person  who  is  a  regular,  heavy  drinker,  but  not 
a  confirmed  drunkard.  After  five  weeks  of 
treatment  the  pair  was  mated  again,  and  the 
results  compared  with  the  previous  results  of 
their  mating  before  the  treatment  and  with  the 
results  of  matings  of  control  couples  not  treated 
with  alcohol.  The  disrupting  effect  of  the  alco- 
hol, in  this  case,  was  astounding,  and  found  to 
be  general  no  matter  how  many  couples  were 
tried.  The  number  of  litters  in  a  given  -time 
dropped  in  a  marked  degree.  The  number  of 
failures  to  reproduce  and  of  early  abortions  was 
practically  doubled.  The  numbers  of  still-born 
litters  was  increased  many  fold.  The  total  dead 
offspring,  including  those  born  dead  and  those 
dying  soon  after  birth,  actually  exceeded  the 
total  living,  while  in  the  normal  pairs  the  pro- 
portion was  only  about  one-fifth. 

This  wholesale  killing  of  offspring  does  not 
complete  the  tale  of  destruction.  The  offspring 
which  do  survive  are  permanently  impaired. 
They  may  show  no  lesions  or  visible  abnormali- 
ties under  the  microscope,  yet  they  are  not  nor- 
mal. Let  them  remain  total  abstainers  from 
birth,  and,  when  mature,  let  them  be  mated 
under  most  favourable  conditions  with  mates 
proven  to  be  vigorous  and  normal  in  reproduc- 
tion and  in  every  way.     In  such  cases  both 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OF  DEGEI^EEACY    107 

parents  have  never  touched  alcohol,  and  only 
one  alcoholic  grandparent  interrupted  a  strong 
and  vigorous  strain.  Nevertheless,  the  total 
born  dead  or  dying  soon  after  birth  exceeded 
the  total  living,  and  those  living  as  well  as 
those  dying  showed  marked  signs  of  advancing 
degeneracy,  especially  in  the  central  nervous 
system  and  in  the  more  delicate  sense  organs 
such  as  the  eyes. 

The  tragic  tale  is  not  yet  told.  The  small  per 
cent,  of  this  third  generation  are  not  really  so 
normal  as  they  appear  to  be.  Kept  free  from 
alcohol  themselves,  and,  when  grown,  mated 
with  provenly  vigorous  normals,  under  the  most 
favourable  conditions — thus  having  both  parents 
and  all  four  grandparents  free  from  the  poison 
and  only  one  great-grandparent  on  one  side  alco- 
holized, nevertheless  this  generation  was  still 
degenerate,  the  number  dying  being  nearly 
double  the  number  that  lived. 

Not  until  the  fourth  successive  alcohol-free 
generation  of  those  descended  from  an  alcohol- 
ized great-great-grandparent,  do  the  surviving 
progeny  begin  to  be  on  a  par  with  the  always  un- 
alcoholized  strains,  and  such  a  case  is  excep- 
tional, most  of  the  offspring  of  this  generation 
proving  sterile.  In  other  words,  it  takes  four 
generations  of  individuals  entirely  free  from  the 
use  of  alcohol  for  any  of  the  offspring  to  over- 
come the  germ  plasm  effects  of  one  alcoholized 
great -great -grandpa  rent.  And  even  this  recov- 
ery is  accomplished  at  a  tremendous  sacrifice  in 
the  total  number  of  offspring  in  the  three  inter- 


108    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

vening  generations,  and  a  lack  of  vitality  and 
soundness  in  those  who  survived. 

With  a  generally  permitted  sale  of  alcohol 
and  with  constant  reintroductions  of  alcohol- 
damaged  strains  by  marriage,  the  tendency  of 
alcoholized  human  lineages  to  increasing  de- 
generacy and  possible  ultimate  sterility  seems 
a  reasonable  conclusion.  The  alcoholic  ap- 
parently puts  his  progeny  into  a  pit  from  which 
only  their  intermarriage  with  untainted  stock 
can  ultimately  lift  them,  if  complete  rescue  be 
at  all  possible. 

Investigations  with  the  human  species  have 
been  conducted  in  various  parts  of  the  world, 
as  mentioned  previously.  These  were,  of  course, 
simply  the  making  of  records,  but  they  confirm 
the  tragic  results  of  the  experiments  with  other 
mammals. 

In  most  of  these  cases  families  were  chosen 
in  which  both  parents  were  alcoholic,  or  one 
parent  was  an  alcoholic,  and  the  results  com- 
pared with  those  of  families  living  under  other 
conditions  more  or  less  similar,  in  which  both 
parents  were  total  abstainers.  In  abstinent 
families,  with  alcohol-free  heredity,  nine  out  of 
ten  children  proved  to  be  normal,  the  tenth  be- 
ing only  a  little  backward.  Where  both  parents 
were  alcoholics,  five  out  of  six  of  the  children 
proved  abnormal,  evincing  various  forms  of 
degeneracy  such  as  mental  deficiency,  hysteria, 
convulsions,  epilepsy,  feeble-mindedness,  idiocy 
or  insanity,  many  turning  out  to  be  impulsive 
degenerates*  criminals,  profligates  and  moral 


THE  SPECIFIC  CAUSE  OP  DEGENEKACY    109 

imbeciles.  The  mind  cannot  conceive  the  in- 
finite tragedy  of  this.  As  Forel  says,  "  The 
damage  to  the  cells  of  reproduction  is  well-nigh 
irreparable." 

Extensive  investigations  have  been  made 
covering  cases  of  "  temperate  "-drinking  par- 
ents— drinking  only  light  wine  or  beer  at  one 
meal  and  not  more  than  one  glass  apiece,  and 
the  results  in  such  families  compared  with  the 
results  in  totally  abstaining  families.  The  re- 
sults here  also  are  appalling.1  Temperate 
drinking  in  the  family  multiplied  many  fold  the 
cases  of  miscarriage,  early  abortion,  and  of 
children  born  dead.  It  nearly  doubled  the 
number  of  children  who  died  in  the  first  year, 
interfering  with  the  mother's  capacity  to  suckle 
her  young.2  Evidences  of  increased  degeneracy, 
of  weakness  of  mind,  of  body  and  of  morals,  con- 
tinued to  appear  in  the  children  which  sur- 
vived. 

Eeviewing  the  evidence  briefly  cited  in  this 
chapter,  and  of  the  chapters  immediately  pre- 
ceding, but  one  conclusion  can  be  drawn. 
Modern  science  has  found  beyond  question  that 
alcohol,  once  supposed  to  be  the  "  water  of  life," 
formerly  thought  to  be  a  food,  stimulant  and 
medicine,  is  in  reality  the  deadliest  of  all  poi- 
sons, poisoning  not  only  the  organs  and  tissues 
of  the  individual  who  drinks  and  shortening  his 
life,  but,  as  no  other  poison  can  do,  fixing  de- 
generacy in  the  sacred  germ  plasm  and  blight- 
ing offspring  unborn,   until  that  degeneracy, 

1  Laitinen,  Devine,  Bertholet.  *  Bunge. 


110    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

under  nature's  wrath,  snaps  the  chain  of  life 
that  has  come  down  through  the  ages.  It  is 
a  specific  cause  of  degeneracy,  bringing  down 
upon  any  and  all  life  that  it  touches  the  curse 
of  nature  and  of  nature's  God. 

In  the  light  of  modern  science  the  hideous 
and  tragic  truth  about  alcohol  now  stands 
revealed : 

1.  Alcohol  is  a  protoplasm  poison,  a  poison 

of  all  life,  whether  of  plant,  animal,  or 
man. 

2.  Alcohol  is  a  habit-forming  drug,  a  most 

alluring,  deceptive  and  enslaving  drug. 

3.  Alcohol  is  a  specific  cause  of  degeneracy, 

an  active  principle  of  death  for  body, 
mind,  and  soul  in  the  individual  who 
drinks,  and  of  degeneracy  and  ultimate 
sterility  in  his  progeny. 


IV 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE 
(INCLUDING  DISCUSSION  OF  ALCO- 
HOL'S EFFECTS  IN  FAMILIES) 

THE  catalogue  of  the  effects  of  alcohol 
on  individuals  would  not  be  complete 
were  we  to  overlook  its  bearing  upon 
prenatal  integrity  and  welfare  and  upon  ade- 
quate birth  and  growth  environments.  This  in- 
volves a  discussion  from  a  new  angle  of  some 
matters  already  touched  upon,  and  new  facts  as 
well,  showing  how  the  whole  life-cycles  of  indi- 
vidual human  beings  are  disturbed  and  impover- 
ished through  the  operations  of  this  drug  in 
homes  and  families.  No  members  of  the  animal 
kingdom  enjoy  so  long  a  period  of  immaturity 
as  does  man.  No  germ  plasm  has  as  much 
"  promise  and  potency  "  as  has  his,  and  no  in- 
fancies and  immaturities  offer  so  infinite  a 
range  of  possible  development  as  do  those  of 
humankind.  From  the  earliest  times  thought- 
ful men  have  recognized  the  high  importance  of 
the  influences  with  which  children  and  youth 
are  surrounded,  but  modern  science  has  revealed 
that  the  period  of  determination  of  what  manner 
of  man  a  child  will  be  begins  long  before  he  is 

111 


112    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

born  and  involves  many  factors  subsequent  to 
birth  of  which  the  ancients  never  dreamed. 

Alcohol  and  the  Prenatal  Period. 

The  life  span  of  the  individual  in  civilized 
society  consists  of  three  periods,  the  prenatal 
period,  the  period  of  minority,  and  the  period 
of  majority.  The  prenatal  period  begins  with 
the  cardinal  event  of  conception,  when  the  germ 
plasm  of  two  lines  or  two  chains  of  life  are 
welded  to  make  a  new  link  or  mesh  in  the  great 
living,  changing  net  of  human  life.  The  result 
of  the  welding,  the  relative  perfection  of  the 
little  embryo  life  as  it  starts  upon  its  course  of 
immortality,  depends  chiefly  upon  the  integrity 
of  the  two  lines  of  germ  plasm.  Many  factors 
may  enter  the  equation  which  determines  the 
integrity  of  such  a  line  of  germ  plasm,  factors 
of  strength  and  factors  of  weakness,  factors 
laden  with  life,  factors  laden  with  death.  But 
in  the  present  state  of  human  life,  as  in  the  past 
state  from  which  the  present  state  comes,  a 
potent,  determining  factor  is  alcohol,  a  great 
carrier  of  death.  Generally  speaking,  nature 
can  be  relied  upon  to  bring  in  the  needed  life 
factors ;  man,  in  the  person  of  father  or  mother, 
brings  in  the  death  factors. 

We  have  already  noted  that  while  alcohol 
strikes  a  heavy  blow  at  all  the  protoplasm  of  an 
organism,  and  strikes  a  still  heavier  blow  at  the 
central  nervous  system  and  the  brain,  its 
most  far-reaching  blow  is  struck  by  way  of  the 
germ  plasm.     Investigation  shows  the  disaster 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  113 

to  the  germ  plasm  of  male  animals  to  be  some- 
what more  marked  than  to  that  of  the  female, 
and  that  the  generative  organs  are  injured  by 
even  small  quantities  of  the  poison,  when  other 
tissues  show  no  effect.  We  have  also  recounted 
how  the  upbuilding  forces  of  a  species  stamp 
themselves  most  completely  on  its  germ  plasm 
and  how,  by  disintegration  of  those  portions  of 
the  germ  plasm  freighted  with  these  precious  in- 
heritances, alcohol  vitiates  the  ensuing  chain  of 
life  and  becomes  a  cause  of  degeneracy  and 
ultimate  sterility.  Considering  how  widely 
and  thoughtlessly  men  and  women,  the  fathers 
and  mothers  of  the  race,  drink  intoxicating 
liquors,  it  is  alarming  to  know,  from  investi- 
gations of  Dr.  Laitinen  and  others,  that  very 
temperate  drinking  by  both  parents  multiplies 
the  number  of  early  abortions,  miscarriages, 
and  still-births,  heavily  increasing  the  number 
of  deaths  in  infancy.  It  is  yet  more  disturb- 
ing to  know,  from  the  investigations  of  Drs. 
Stockard,  Arlitt  Wells,  Ballantyne,  and  others, 
with  both  animals  and  human  families  that 
where  one  parent  is  an  alcoholic  and  the  other 
normal  and  alcohol-free,  these  results  are  pres- 
ent, and  the  germ  plasms  of  their  surviving 
progeny  tend  progressively  to  weaken  and 
disintegrate — even  though  the  microscope  may 
reveal  no  lesions  in  the  tissues  and  organs — 
until,  in  the  fourth  generation,  the  chain  of  life 
may  break  and  the  line  become  extinct. 

Of  course  the  effect  of  occasional  drinking 
upon  the  germ  plasm  is  more  acute  when  in- 


114    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

dulged  in  at  or  near  the  time  of  conception. 
Informed  by  researches  of  Dr.  Bezzola,  the 
public  health  authorities  in  communities  abroad 
where  drinking  festivities  occur  at  fixed  periods 
every  year,  know  just  when  to  expect  the  birth  of 
an  excessive  crop  of  backward  children  or  feeble- 
minded and  idiotic  children.  But  the  persistence 
of  the  injury  to  the  germ  plasm  through  succes- 
sive generations,  when  injury  to  other  protoplasm 
is  not  discernible,  indicates  the  fundamental  and 
permanent  nature  of  the  injury,  even  when  con- 
ception is  well  removed  from  the  time  of  drink- 
ing. Any  person,  man  or  woman,  who  is  ever 
to  have  the  responsibility  of  parenthood,  should 
abhor  the  thought  of  permitting  alcohol  to  enter 
the  system.  Even  if  a  person  is  recklessly  in- 
clined as  to  taking  chances  with  himself,  he 
would  not,  unless  a  degenerate,  take  deadly 
chances  on  the  lives  of  the  little  beings  he  is  to 
be  responsible  for  bringing  into  the  world.  No 
normal  person  would  knowingly  or  carelessly 
strike  a  death  blow  at  the  chain  of  life  for  which 
he  is  trustee.  Besides  this  direct  effect,  alcohol 
has  the  usual  indirect  effect  upon  the  germ 
plasm,  the  carrier  of  heredity,  through  the 
pathological  conditions  and  lowered  vitality 
produced  in  the  organs  and  tissues  of  a  drink- 
ing parent. 

The  only  other  poison  which  approaches  alco- 
hol in  its  direct,  persistent,  deadly  assault  upon 
the  germ  plasm,  is  syphilis ;  and  this  scourge  is 
the  boon  companion  of  drink.  Alcohol  prepares 
the  way  for  its  infections  by  deadening  the 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  115 

moral  sense,  unleashing  the  lower  passions,  sus- 
pending self-respect,  judgment,  and  prudence, 
and  lowering  the  resistive  vitality  of  the  body. 

Alcohol  is  the  original,  inflammatory  cause  of 
the  infection  of  most  of  those  who  are  car- 
riers of  this  and  kindred  diseases,  the  primary 
cause  of  the  condition  of  feeble-minded,  un- 
balanced female  sex-perverts,  and  of  those 
women  and  girls  who,  though  of  sound  mind, 
were  taken  advantage  of  through  the  temporary 
suspension  of  their  higher  faculties  as  the  result 
of  drink.  This  cannot  be  questioned.  The 
estimates  of  the  best  authorities  in  the  world 
differ  but  slightly  as  to  the  relation  between 
drink  and  venereal  disease.  Dr.  Douglas 
White,  of  England,  estimates  that  eighty  per 
cent,  is  the  proportion  acquired  Tinder  the  in- 
fluence of  alcohol;  while  Dr.  Forel,  the  best 
authority  on  the  Continent,  estimates  it  at 
seventy-six,  and  Dr.  Haven  Emerson,  the  best 
authority  in  America,  at  seventy-five  per  cent. 
As  the  chief  fundamental  cause  of  immo- 
rality, alcohol  is  the  mother  of  venereal  dis- 
ease. Mother  and  whelp  are  continually  stalk- 
ing through  the  land  and,  not  in  the  slums  alone 
but  in  tens  of  thousands  of  good  homes,  are 
tearing  to  pieces  with  foul  fangs  the  holy  weft 
of  which  nature  weaves  new  lives. 

After  the  welding  of  the  two  lines  of  germ 
plasm  in  conception,  the  little  life  starts  upon 
its  course.  The  first  appointed  period  of  de- 
velopment is  passed  in  the  warm,  tender,  shel- 
tered retreat  under  the  mother's  heart,  where 


116    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

its  well-being  should  be  the  most  sacred  concern 
of  father  and  mother  alike.  During  this  deli- 
cate period  in  the  womb  the  little  life  draws 
solely  upon  the  mother's  life.  So  sacred  is  this 
little  life  that  a  woman  under  penalty  of  capital 
punishment  to  forfeit  her  own  life  is  neverthe- 
less reprieved  for  its  sake.  For  its  best  welfare 
the  little  life  must  have  its  full  term  in  the 
womb,  must  receive  from  the  mother's  blood  the 
best  of  nourishment,  must  be  kept  safe  from 
harmful  agencies  taken  into  the  mother's  system 
or  generated  there  by  malnutrition,  worry, 
fatigue,  shock,  or  violence,  and  must  have  the 
benefit  of  those  happy,  serene  conditions  within 
the  home,  which  only  a  father's  love  can  provide. 

If  alcohol  poisons  the  tissues  and  organs  of 
the  mature,  how  much  more  must  it  poison  the 
tissues  and  organs  of  a  little  life  just  forming. 
If  its  attack  is  so  deadly  upon  the  nervous  sys- 
tem of  the  mature,  how  much  more  deadly  must 
it  be  upon  the  nervous  systems  of  the  unborn. 
If  its  effect  is  so  disrupting  upon  the  germ 
plasm  in  the  mature,  how  much  more  disrupting 
must  it  be  upon  the  germ  plasm  in  the  embryo. 
Expectant  mothers  should  spurn  this  deadly 
poison.  To  take  it  is  to  serve  it  to  the  unborn 
little  ones. 

Thus  is  alcohol  scientifically  revealed  as  the 
overwhelming  cause  of  injury  to  the  germ  plasm 
of  the  race,  as  the  principal  cause  of  the  failure 
of  conception,  of  miscarriage,  and  unpurposed 
abortion,  of  that  brutalizing  and  pauperizing  of 
husbands,  which  brings  discord  and  disruption 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  117 

to  the  home,  worry,  malnutrition  and  illness  to 
the  mothers  of  men,  and  consequent  physical 
and  nervous  robbery  of  the  race  in  embryo. 

The  Period  of  Minority. 

Under  civilized  usage  minority  extends  to 
about  the  age  of  twenty-one  in  man  and  a  few 
years  younger  in  woman,  and  the  period  of 
majority  extends  thence  onward  till  death.  The 
period  of  minority  includes  infancy,  childhood, 
adolescence  and  youth.  Alcohol,  harmful  to  the 
adult,  is,  of  course,  more  harmful  to  the  young. 
Even  in  those  places  where  the  sale  of  liquor  to 
the  grown  is  freely  permitted,  the  law,  as  a  rule, 
if  it  regulates  at  all,  forbids  the  sale  to  minors. 
Such  laws  exist  in  most  of  the  civilized  coun- 
tries of  the  world,  and  did  exist  in  all  the  license 
states  of  the  American  Union.  It  is  a  com- 
mentary upon  the  innate  lawlessness  of  the 
liquor  traffic  that,  though  the  law  forbids  the 
sale  of  liquor  to  minors,  yet  most  of  the  drunk- 
ards, more  than  two-thirds  of  all,  have  formed 
the  alcohol  habit  before  reaching  their  majority. 

A  mother  in  health  and  well  nourished  should 
herself  suckle  her  young.  For  its  best  well-being 
the  infant  should  have  a  period  at  the  breast  as 
long  as  the  period  in  the  womb.  Even  tem- 
perate drinking  on  the  part  of  the  mother  tends 
to  incapacitate  her  from  nursing  her  children. 
This  has  been  clearly  shown  in  the  investiga- 
tions of  Dr.  Bunge  and  many  others.  If  the 
mother's  parents  have  been  intemperate,  par- 
ticularly the  father,  the  same  unfortunate  in- 


118    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EAOE 

capacity  of  nursing  her  children  is  liable  to 
result  even  though  the  mother  herself  may  be  a 
total  abstainer.  This  hereditary  defect  may 
be  traced  back  even  to  grandparents.  Alcohol 
robs  millions  of  infants  of  this  birthright  of  in- 
fancy. Some  mothers,  experiencing  difficulties 
in  nursing,  have  strangely  enough  had  recourse 
to  intoxicating  drinks.  It  is  pitiful  to  contem- 
plate that  physicians,  supposed  to  be  reputable, 
have  prescribed  beer,  porter,  and  other  drinks 
to  nursing  mothers,  thus  tending  to  alcoholize 
the  infants. 

During  the  whole  period  of  infancy,  the  child 
is  entitled  to  the  surroundings  of  a  true  home 
with  guarding  and  guiding  parental  love.  All 
records  show  that  alcohol  is  the  principal  dis- 
rupter of  the  home,  often  more  potent  than  all 
others  combined.  Next  to  liquor  comes  marital 
infidelity,  second  in  rank  as  a  home  destroyer, 
and  it  is  well  known  that  most  of  this  infidelity 
has  drink  for  its  moral  and  physical  back- 
ground. 

Alcohol  is  not  content  with  robbing  infants 
of  their  racial  rights.  It  steals  life  itself.  Not 
only  is  it  the  principal  cause  of  death  before 
birth,  of  involuntary  abortions,  miscarriages 
and  still -births,  but  it  is  also  the  principal  cause 
of  death  in  infancy.  From  the  investigations 
of  Dr.  Laitinen  and  others  we  calculate  that, 
including  the  number  born  dead,  half  the  human 
race  dies  before  the  age  of  Ave.  Little  animals 
on  farms  do  not  die  prematurely  in  this  way, 
neither    should   little    children.     Through   its 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  119 

direct  effect  in  poisoning  the  germ  plasm  and 
the  embryo,  with  resulting  injury  to  organs  and 
general  lowering  of  vitality  and  resistance  to 
infantile  diseases,  and  through  its  indirect  ef- 
fect in  disorganizing  homes  and  causing  lack  of 
care,  of  carelessness  in  overlying,  alcohol  is  the 
Herod  of  the  ages.  The  big  graveyards  are  full 
of  little  graves.  Tens  of  thousands  of  little 
children  die  every  year  from  derangements  in- 
flicted upon  their  helpless,  innocent  lives  by 
alcohol.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  others  every 
year  receive  permanent  injuries  to  body  and 
mind  which  may  react  to  destroy  even  character 
and  soul.  Alcohol,  the  deadliest  enemy  of  the 
individual  in  the  prenatal  period,  is  also  the 
deadly  enemy  in  infancy. 

In  childhood,  as  in  infancy,  the  chief  needs 
for  normal  development  are  the  ministrations 
of  parental  love  in  watching  over  the  health, 
providing  food,  clothing  and  shelter,  teaching 
and  moulding  the  plastic  mind  and  laying  the 
foundation  of  character  in  obedience,  self-con- 
trol and  regard  for  the  rights  of  others.  In  this 
period  the  mother's  care  and  the  father's  ex- 
ample and  ability  to  provide  for  the  family  are 
the  factors  of  prime  importance.  Alcohol,  in 
addition  to  causing  most  of  the  inherited  and 
constitutional  weaknesses  of  children,  likewise 
causes  most  of  the  physical  mistreatment  of 
children,  such  as  brutal  handling  and  exposure 
to  the  elements  and  to  disease.  It  brings  about 
their  exposure  to  degenerating  influences  and 
causes  most  of  the  parental  neglect — of  the 


120    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

mother  by  making  it  necessary  for  her  to  leave 
the  home  and  child  and  be  a  bread-winner,  and 
of  the  father,  by  making  him  a  bad  example 
and  a  poor  provider.  It  produces  an  atmos- 
phere of  misery  and  depravity  and  incites  to 
actual  physical  abuse.  In  the  cities  the  number 
of  children  thrown  upon  the  streets,  a  prey  to 
disease  and  depravity,  is  incredible.  The  in- 
vestigations at  Bellevue  Hospital,  New  York, 
show  that  about  seven  per  cent,  of  the  drunkards 
investigated  there  contracted  their  drink  habits 
before  the  age  of  twelve  years. 

The  critical  period  of  adolescence  offers  alco- 
hol almost  limitless  opportunity  for  injury.  It 
steals  away  educational  opportunities  so  vital 
to  the  future  welfare.  Investigations  show  that 
an  American  whose  education  stops  at  the 
grammar  school  has  only  one  chance  in  nine 
thousand  to  become  one  of  the  ten  thousand 
leaders  whose  names  are  in  "Who's  Who  in 
America. "  If  he  completes  his  high  school 
course,  he  will  have  one  chance  in  four  hundred. 
If  he  goes  through  college,  he  will  have  one 
chance  in  forty.  The  average  American  boy 
stops  school  before  finishing  his  twelfth  year, 
so  we  can  see  what  this  neglect  of  educational 
advantage  must  mean  in  cutting  down  the  na- 
tion's leadership  and  limiting  its  manhood. 

During  adolescence,  the  influence  and  ex- 
ample of  the  father  become  vital  factors  in  the 
life  of  the  child,  especially  the  boy.  Alcohol 
largely  converts  these  into  a  liability.  Adoles- 
cent youth  is  also  a  special  target  of  legalized 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  121 

traffickers  in  alcohol.  They  know  the  steadily 
depleting  circle  of  their  regular  patrons  has  to 
be  replenished,  and  they  display  devilish  in- 
genuity in  devising  ways  of  creating  a  taste  for 
alcohol  in  mere  boys.  A  common  practice  of 
American  liquor  dealers  has  been  the  free,  sur- 
reptitious distribution  of  liquors  in  attractive 
little  bottles.  They  have  employed  agents  to 
promote  drinking  among  boys  in  whatever 
gathering-places  offered  opportunity.  These 
agents  and  the  dealers  they  serve  also  preach 
an  alcohol  cult.  Boys  are  told  that  it  is  manly 
to  drink,  that  strong  men  like  strong  drink. 
The  Bellevue  Hospital  record  previously  cited 
shows  that  one-third  of  the  drunkards  investi- 
gated there  contracted  the  habit  before  reaching 
the  age  of  sixteen.  At  this  critical  period  alco- 
hol swings  wide  the  door  to  immorality  and 
crime  and  starts  the  boy  on  a  career  of  de- 
pravity. Alcohol,  the  deadliest  enemy  of  in- 
fancy and  childhood,  continues  as  a  deadly 
enemy  in  adolescence  and  youth. 

In  a  general  way,  the  higher  the  order  of 
being,  the  longer  is  the  period  of  immaturity. 
For  the  perfection  of  individual  life  in  a  high 
state  of  civilization,  there  must  be  a  long  period 
of  minority  for  the  process  of  growth,  develop- 
ment, education,  and  general  preparation. 
Alcohol,  more  than  all  other  causes  combined, 
seriously  shortens  this  period,  throwing  the  boy 
upon  his  own  resources. 

The  forces  which  mould  adolescent  and  im- 
mature life  should  be  moral  forces,  carefully 


122    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

determined  to  produce  health,  cleanliness, 
chastity,  mental  vigour,  self-control,  obedience, 
honesty,  integrity,  reliability,  respect  for  the 
rights  of  others — the  conditions  of  physical, 
mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  well-being.  Al- 
cohol, more  than  all  other  causes  combined, 
interferes  with  the  bringing  to  bear  of  these 
wholesome  forces,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
brings  to  bear  directly  and  indirectly  all 
forms  of  malevolent  forces.  A  majority  of 
the  criminals  of  the  world  are  youthful  crim- 
inals, below  the  age  of  twenty-one.  Of  all 
who  are  criminals  in  their  majority  years, 
records  show  that  probably  four-fifths  began 
their  criminal  careers  below  the  age  of  twenty- 
one.  Of  all  the  world's  criminals,  records  of 
all  lands  show  that  from  fifty  to  ninety  per  cent. 
or  more  were  produced  directly  and  indirectly 
by  the  action  of  alcohol  on  their  heredity  and 
their  minority  environment.  As  if  by  malev- 
olent intelligence,  alcohol  makes  a  dead  set  to 
control  the  formative  factors  of  the  individual 
life,  heredity  in  the  germ  plasm,  the  pre- 
natal period,  conception  and  life  in  the  womb, 
and  the  period  of  minority  covering  infancy, 
childhood,  adolescence  and  youth. 

Alcohol  and  the  Period  of  Maturity. 

After  having  such  a  free  hand  in  the  forma- 
tive periods  one  would  think  alcohol  might  well 
abandon  the  individual  to  society  and  take 
chances  on  the  period  of  maturity.  This,  how- 
ever, is  the  period  of  the  harvest  when  the  great 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  123 

profits  of  the  liquor  traffic  are  realized.  With 
drinking  establishments  constantly  thrust  in  his 
face,  surrounded  with  drinking  customs  and 
institutions,  the  drink  habit  formed  in  boyhood 
and  youth  continues  without  break  and  deepens 
in  manhood.  The  liquor  traffic  stands  ever  at 
the  elbow  of  the  grown,  a  dark  shadow  with  the 
features  of  death,  but  possessing  unparalleled 
powers  of  allurement. 

Man  is  a  mating  mammal.  The  normal  life 
of  maturity  is  lived  in  the  family.  The  prin- 
cipal functions  of  the  individual  in  maturity 
are  connected  with  the  home.  The  life  of  the 
aggregation,  the  nation  and  the  race,  is  built 
upon  homes.  In  the  usual  normal  differentia- 
tion of  the  activities  of  the  home,  the  man  is  the 
bread-winner  and  protector.  As  bread-winner, 
he  holds  the  purse  strings,  the  liquor  dealers' 
objective.  Therefore  he  is  more  exposed  to 
liquor's  influence.  Heretofore,  too,  man  alone 
has  held  the  political  reins  with  power  of  life 
and  death  over  the  liquor  traffic.  Naturally  he 
has  been  addedly  the  target  of  the  liquor  traffic's 
promoters  on  that  account. 

In  normal  conditions  the  earning  power  of 
the  average  man  is  measured  by  his  efficiency  in 
productive  industry.  Early  manhood  is  nor- 
mally spent  in  the  development  of  productive 
efficiency,  trying  out  the  fields,  putting  into 
application  and  building  upon  the  knowledge 
and  training  of  youth,  acquiring  and  broaden- 
ing the  grasp  in  some  particular  line  leading  up 
to  a  period  of  mastery  and  maximum  efficiency 


124    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

in  the  prime  of  life,  during  which  the  acquisi- 
tion of  wealth  should  largely  exceed  expenditure 
and  so  make  good  the  obligations  incurred 
earlier  and  lay  aside  for  the  later  period  when 
productivity  will  decline. 

Liquor  strikes  alike  at  the  acquiring  and  hus- 
banding of  wealth.  Whether  in  a  trade,  pro- 
fession or  business,  efficiency  and  alcohol  can- 
not go  together.  The  loss  of  skill  in  manual 
labour  is  marked,  even  from  temperate  drinking. 
The  loss  of  force  in  intellectual  pursuits  is 
greater.  The  loss  of  character  and  stability, 
honesty  and  integrity,  the  foundations  of  true 
success,  is  the  greatest  loss  of  all.  As  a  rule, 
only  the  places  of  low  pay  are  constantly  open 
to  the  drinker.  Since  it  has  become  a  matter 
of  common  knowledge  that  even  temperate 
drinking  makes  serious  inroads  upon  efficiency, 
alcohol  can  be  said  to  have  barred  the  way  to 
the  promotion,  and  the  legitimately  continuing 
careers  of  thousands  who  would  otherwise  have 
been  the  world's  best  producers.  Its  followers 
must  be  content  now  with  the  husks  and  dregs 
of  industrial  life.  The  question  is  not  debat- 
able. Every  intelligent,  well-informed  person 
now  knows  that  alcohol  is  the  bread-winner's 
deadliest  enemy. 

Man's  capacity  as  a  home  protector  is  as  much 
impaired  by  liquor  as  is  his  capacity  as  a  bread- 
winner. Alcohol,  by  its  brutalizing  effect  on 
man's  nature,  tends  to  turn  him  back  from  the 
natural  normal  inclination  in  a  Christian 
civilization  to  mate  with,  marry,  and  live  in 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE  CYCLE  125 

wedlock  with  one  woman,  toward  a  lower  civili- 
zation and  toward  a  promiscuity  like  that  of  the 
lower  animals.  Of  course,  there  are  many  strik- 
ing and  some  noble  cases  of  self-sacrifice  in  the 
single  life,  arising  from  other  causes,  but,  on 
the  whole,  alcohol  is  the  principal  cause  of 
bachelorhood,  resulting  in  the  voluntary  ending 
of  so  many  chains  of  life  that  God  and  nature 
intended  to  go  on  till  the  end  of  time  yielding 
blessings  to  the  world. 

The  general  effect  of  alcohol  is  the  same  even 
when  it  does  not  prevent  wedlock.  It  tends  to 
incapacitate  a  man  for  the  highest  reproduction, 
debases  love  to  the  level  of  lust,  removes  the 
restraints  of  reason  and  conscience,  and  causes 
most  of  the  marital  infidelity  of  the  world.  In 
this  way  alcohol,  more  than  any  other  thing, 
creates  the  commercial  demand  for  immorality. 
It  also  enters  as  the  chief  instrument  in  the  fall 
of  women  and  thus  it  is  the  chief  factor  in  pro- 
ducing the  supply.  It  bears  the  relation  to  im- 
morality, in  most  cases,  that  cause  does  to  ef- 
fect. Nature's  horror  of  the  immorality  of  the 
degenerate  is  manifested  by  the  contagious  dis- 
eases with  which  it  is  interwoven,  all  of  which 
are  terrifying  in  their  ultimate  effects.  From 
being  the  protector  of  his  wife  and  home,  liquor 
often  makes  the  husband  a  serious  menace,  prac- 
tically making  impossible  the  normal,  true 
course  for  the  individual,  namely,  absolute 
chastity  till  wedlock,  and  fidelity  and  temper- 
ance thereafter.  Even  where  it  does  not  bring 
disease  and  destruction  to  the  home,  alcohol  is 


126    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

the  principal  cause  of  that  condition  of  mind 
and  heart  which  plants  the  seed  of  discord  while 
it  progressively  incapacitates  the  man  for  the 
tender  functions  of  husband  and  father.  As  it 
strikes  at  one  man  in  his  heredity,  rearing  and 
education  through  his  father,  so  through  him  it 
will  strike  at  his  own  children.  In  his  capacity 
as  home  protector,  as  in  his  capacity  as  bread- 
winner, individual  man  suffers  sadly  by  alcohol. 

The  most  important  function  of  maturity  in 
any  form  of  life  is  that  of  reproduction,  which 
in  civilized  man  must  take  place  amid  the  safe- 
guards of  the  home.  Upon  the  integrity  of  this 
function  hangs  the  perpetuity  of  civilized  life 
upon  the  earth.  Protecting  the  germ  plasm  for 
which  he  is  trustee  and  passing  it  on  in  its  full 
integrity  to  coming  generations  is  the  most 
vital,  the  highest,  holiest  duty  of  the  individual. 
To  completely  perform  this  duty,  to  be  true  to 
this  trust,  the  individual  man  or  woman  must 
absolutely  banish  alcohol.  "  For  want  of 
knowledge  do  the  people  perish."  How  strange, 
how  pitiful  it  is  in  the  light  of  the  truth  about 
alcohol,  that  liquor  still  sits  a  welcome  guest  at 
so  many  tables,  a  constant  inmate  of  so  many 
homes,  companion  of  father,  mother,  and  even 
of  children, — attractive,  alluring,  but  secretly 
sending  its  poisonous  taints  of  disease  and  de- 
generacy into  their  bodies,  brains,  intellects  and 
characters. 

As  alcohol  deranges  and  degenerates  the 
functions  and  activities  of  young  manhood  and 
maturity,  so  it  shortens  those  periods.     It  is 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE  CYCLE  127 

difficult  for  men  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the 
fact  that  even  temperate  drinking  increases 
mortality  and  shortens  the  span  of  life,  and 
also  leads  to  heavy  drinking  which  at  some 
ages  doubles  the  death-rate.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  standard  life  insurance  companies 
have  practically  ceased  to  insure  heavy  drinkers, 
and  are  more  and  more  loath  to  insure  tem- 
perate regular  drinkers,  no  matter  what  their 
other  qualifications.  The  man  who  indulges  in 
alcohol  takes  on  new  death  risks  from  violence 
and  accidents,  from  organic  diseases  of  the 
heart,  liver,  kidneys,  lungs  and  brain.  The 
imagination  can  scarcely  picture  the  multi- 
tudinous annoyance,  sufferings,  depressions, 
remorses  that  accompany  the  ill-health  of  body 
and  mind  as  multitudes  slowly  disintegrate 
with  alcohol  poisoning.  It  is  incredible  that 
rational  beings,  after  achieving  manhood  and 
mature  judgment,  will  deliberately  incur  such 
risks  and  dangers  for  the  sake  of  the  fleeting, 
sensual  gratifications  of  alcoholic  indulgence.  It 
is  a  sinister  tribute  to  the  hideous  power  of  this 
drug  that,  though  scarcely  any  one  now  really 
believes  that  any  good  comes  of  drink,  and  all 
know  how  it  invariably  results,  yet  so  many 
continue  the  baneful  indulgence.  Often  it  is 
not  so  much  the  lack  of  knowledge  as  it  is  lack 
of  will  and  volition,  the  sacred  saving  attributes 
earliest  affected  by  drink.  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  multitudes  of  drinkers,  them- 
selves aware  of  their  weakness  when  this  tempta- 
tion besets  them,  are  now  voting  en  masse  for 


128    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

prohibition  to  change  their  environment  and 
remove  the  evil  from  their  paths. 

Alcohol  is  as  incompatible  with  well-being  in 
old  age  as  in  the  prime  of  life.  Normally  the 
energy  and  activity  of  the  period  of  prime 
passes  imperceptibly  into  the  contemplation  and 
philosophy  of  age.  In  the  fullness  of  years,  the 
soul  elements,  the  attributes  of  latest  develop- 
ment in  the  evolution  of  race,  carry  the  day  of 
a  well-spent  life  into  serene  sunset.  Alcohol 
attacks  and  particularly  impairs  these  soul  ele- 
ments. 

Alcohol  and  the  Soul. 

The  ultimate  unit  of  real  value  in  the  world 
is  the  individual  human  life.  The  orderly  de- 
velopment of  the  individual  human  life  and 
the  evolutionary  recreation  of  individual  hu- 
man lives  are  clearly  the  object  of  Nature. 
All  things,  animate  and  inanimate,  derive 
their  true  value  from  their  contribution  to 
the  progress,  the  uplift,  of  human  life.  The 
value  of  any  line  of  conduct,  of  any  traffic,  in- 
stitution or  civilization,  must  be  measured  by 
the  same  standard.  It  is  soul-life  that  gives 
dignity  to  human  life  above  the  life  of  the  brute, 
that  links  the  human  with  the  divine,  that  is  the 
basis  of  faith  and  immortality.  It  is  soul-life 
that  sustains  a  man  in  the  hour  of  trial,  danger 
and  suffering,  that  girds  him  to  stand  for  right 
and  the  truth  no  matter  what  the  odds,  that  em- 
powers him  to  tread  the  path  of  duty  erect  and 
unfaltering  even  though  it  lead  to  death.    There 


ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  LIFE-CYCLE  129 

are  no  material  standards  by  which  to  measure 
the  value  of  soul-life.  "  What  shall  it  profit  a 
man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own 
soul,  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for 
his  soul?  "  Alcohol  taken  internally  strikes  at 
a  man's  soul-life. 

In  the  divine  order  of  things,  a  man  is  chief 
architect  of  his  own  character  and  a  contribut- 
ing architect  to  the  character-building  of  others, 
and  he  plays  a  concrete  part  in  the  general  up- 
building of  the  race.  Heredity  plays  an  im- 
portant part,  as  does  environment,  in  the  re- 
sults, but  the  individual  can  largely  regulate, 
or  at  least  powerfully  affect,  these  factors — 
environment  for  the  present,  heredity  for  the 
future — and  thus  maintain  mastery,  not  only 
over  his  own  destiny,  but  be  a  potent  contributor 
toward  the  destiny  of  the  race.  Alcohol  taken 
internally  will  undermine  and  ultimately  des- 
troy a  man  as  a  character-builder — will  tear 
down  the  noblest  upper-structure  of  his  own 
character  and  incapacitate  him  for  contributing 
to  character-building  in  others.  It  will  trans- 
form a  character-builder  into  a  character-des- 
troyer. 

There  is  a  natural  law  governing  all  develop- 
ment, the  law  of  exercise.  All  are  familiar  with 
the  elements  of  this  law.  In  the  development 
of  the  bicepts  the  arm  must  not  be  put  in  a 
sling.  It  must  be  exercised  not  once  only,  not 
spasmodically,  but  regularly,  as  an  integral  part 
of  daily  life.  It  must  not  be  strained  beyond 
its  strength,  nor  fatigued  beyond  its  powers  of 


130    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

rebound  and  recuperation.  All  the  while  the 
tissue  structure  must  be  healthy  and  must  be 
adequately  and  regularly  nourished.  How  can 
a  man  develop  character  in  himself?  By  exer- 
cising the  top  part  of  his  brain,  the  seat  of  char- 
acter activities.  A  man  exercises  the  top  part 
of  his  brain  when  he  lives  by  principle,  when 
he  strives  for  high  ideals,  when  he  seeks  daily 
to  serve  others  even  at  the  cost  of  self-sacrifice, 
when  he  renews  his  soul  by  daily  communion 
with  his  Maker.  "He  that  is  greatest  among 
you  shall  be  servant  of  all."  But  if  you  hope 
to  carry  out  any  such  philosophy,  do  not  take 
alcohol  internally.  It  tears  down  the  temple  of 
the  spirit.  Plan,  rather,  to  do  a  man's  part  in 
the  struggle  to  destroy  the  sway  of  alcohol. 

The  magnitude  and  fundamental  nature  of 
such  a  conflict  sweeps  away  differences  of  creed, 
caste  and  race.  A  humanity-wide  warfare 
against  this  universal  foe  offers  the  world  a 
common  task  at  which  to  forget  the  prejudices 
and  hatreds  of  centuries  and  make  enduring 
peace.  In  no  field  can  a  man  more  truly  feel 
the  strength  of  the  everlasting  arms  beneath  his 
feeble  efforts  or  be  surer  of  harmony  with  the 
great  forces  of  nature  and  the  will  of  God. 


PART  II 
Alcohol  and  Society 


GENEKAL  PEINCIPLES 

Keying  Humanity  to  the  Top  of  its  Brain. 

AN  unparalleled  period  of  scientific  re- 
search, has  placed  at  human  disposal 
great  secrets  and  forces  of  nature. 
Though  brief  in  point  of  time,  this  period  has 
lifted  human  life,  in  its  material  aspects,  higher 
above  the  life  of  the  brute  than  all  the  previous 
thousand  years.  It  has  drawn  the  fangs  of 
human  competition  and  has  eliminated  the 
necessity  of  injurious  conflict  as  a  determining 
factor  in  human  survival.  The  conquest  and 
utilization  of  the  forces  of  nature  requires  the 
harmonious  cooperation  of  large  numbers  of 
men.  The  demand  everywhere  is  for  more  men 
to  join  in  producing  the  necessities  and  goods  of 
life,  and  for  more  people  with  capacity  to  buy 
and  use  them.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  in 
human  society  that  any  should  perish  in  order 
that  others  may  live.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
better  for  each  that  all  should  live,  and  should 
become  efficient,  in  order  the  better  to  perform 
an  increasing  part  of  the  boundless  work  of  the 
world. 

In  the  vegetable  kingdom,  briers,  thorns, 
weeds,  are  disappearing  before  scientific  meth- 
ods   of    cultivation,    while    grain,    vegetables, 

133 


134    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

fruits,  cotton  and  other  useful  plants  are  multi- 
plying. In  the  animal  kingdom  the  bird  of 
prey  has  almost  disappeared,  the  beast  of  prey 
is  disappearing.  The  useful  animals,  fowl, 
swine,  sheep,  cows,  oxen,  horses,  and  the  like, 
are  increasing  upon  the  earth.  Among  men, 
civilized  society  is  fast  crushing  out  habits  of 
prey,  eliminating  extortion  from  useful  business 
and  completely  destroying  businesses  which  in- 
juriously exploit  men  with  harmful  commodi- 
ties. That  business  is  expanding  most  which 
is  serving  most. 

We  have  seen  policies  of  exploitation  and  op- 
pression among  nations  cost  nations  their 
colonies  and  their  commerce.  The  nations 
which  are  most  productive,  which  supply  goods 
of  high  grade  at  low  cost,  which  help  their 
colonies  and  are  just  to  weaker  nations,  these 
are  the  nations  destined  to  win  and  hold  the 
commerce  and  the  wealth  of  the  world  in  spite 
of  all  the  power  and  military  efficiency  that  may 
be  used  to  bolster  dominion  by  brute  force.  The 
test  for  fitness  to  survive  is  no  longer  the  ability 
to  destroy,  but  the  power  and  willingness  to  co- 
operate and  conserve.  As  the  Master  an- 
nounced two  thousand  years  ago,  whether  for 
nations  or  for  men,  the  greatest  shall  be  the 
servant  of  all.  As  the  development  of  means 
of  communication  on  the  frontier,  making 
neighbours  of  the  settlers,  put  an  end  to  the 
brigand  and  the  outlaw,  so  the  annihilation  of 
space  by  steam,  steel,  electricity,  and  the  wire- 
less, in  their  conquest  of  the  water  and  the  air 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  135 

as  well  as  of  the  land,  making  neighbours  of  all 
nations,  will  make  short  future  shrift  of  nations, 
empires  and  alliances,  which  undertake  to  live 
without  the  moral  law. 

Before  the  conquest  of  nature,  humankind 
were  spread  loosely  over  the  earth  with  few 
means  of  communication  and  was  racially  like 
a  creature  whose  severed  parts  can  live  inde- 
pendently. With  the  incredible  development 
of  transportation,  the  annihilation  of  space,  the 
conquest  of  nature,  the  race  as  a  whole  has  be- 
come analogous  to  a  warm-blooded  creature 
with  a  circulatory  and  a  nervous  system.  A 
shock  or  injury  in  one  part  is  now  felt  in  all 
parts.  The  nations  and  races  have  become 
"  members  one  of  another " — some  of  the 
thoughts,  habits,  institutions  and  systems 
evolved  in  and  suited  to  the  old  era  will  have 
to  be  transformed,  some  reconstructed,  and 
some  obliterated  to  make  way  for  what  fits  the 
new  era.  Among  other  things,  the  ancient  Bill 
of  Rights  will  have  to  be  supplemented.  For 
its  own  protection,  society  will  be  driven  to  con- 
sider it  the  inherent  right  of  every  child,  ( 1 )  to 
be  well-born,  without  taint  and  the  seeds  of 
degeneracy  in  its  blood;  (2)  to  be  born  in  a 
home  equipped  with  parental  care  and  love; 
(3)  to  receive  proper  and  adequate  education 
during  the  plastic  period;  (4)  to  be  protected 
in  immaturity  from  vitiating  agencies  and 
environment,  and  (5)  to  have  a  fair  chance  in 
maturity  to  take  any  part  in  the  activities  of 
his  generation  for  which  he  is  fitted. 


136    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

Any  scientific  direction  of  social  development 
will  require  the  progressive  elimination  of 
social  friction.  It  will  demand  the  harmonious 
cooperation  of  men  and  nations  to  secure  the 
highest  welfare  of  all.  Such  a  civilization  can 
only  be  built  upon  a  high  and  ever-rising  aver- 
age of  character.  It  will  require  the  dominance 
of  moral  and  spiritual  forces — the  exercise  of 
those  faculties  operating  in  the  top  parts  of 
men's  brains  and  rigorous  restraint  of  every- 
thing which  tends  to  make  human  activities 
originate  in  the  base  of  the  brain,  the  operating 
center  of  the  elemental,  brute  instincts. 

In  such  a  civilization  peace  would  be  endur- 
ing and  liberty  universal.  Henceforth  thinking 
must  be  done,  not  in  terms  of  single  nations  nor 
even  of  groups  of  nations,  but  of  the  human 
race ;  and  it  must  concern  itself  with  the  truly 
vital  social  issues  which  press  for  solution. 
Systems  and  institutions  are  being  weighed  in 
nature's  balance.  Under  acid  tests  sham  and 
pretense  are  withering,  and  ease,  luxury  and 
gilded  vice  are  melting  away.  The  hidden 
causes  of  disease  and  waste  are  being  dragged 
to  the  light.  In  every  land  truly  vital  ques- 
tions are  to  the  fore. 

The  world  is  appropriating,  and  giving  new 
and  radical  interpretations  to,  that  venerable 
but  ever  sound  Anglo-Saxon  precept,  "  The  pub- 
lic welfare  is  the  highest  law."  Limited  in  its 
application  by  so-called  vested  rights  in  the  land 
of  its  origin,  but  made  the  ultimate  norm  by 
which  the  rights  of  every  American  institution 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  137 

are  tested,  it  is  having  far-reaching  conse- 
quences for  the  race.  It  frees  organized  society 
for  adequate  and  summary  dealing  with  any 
public  menace.  It  puts  humanity  above  prop^ 
erty,  soul  above  things.  It  is  the  lode  star  of 
a  social  order  directed  by  the  top  part  of  the 
human  brain,  and  enables  organized  society  to 
function  truly  as  a  living  organism  and  muster 
its  powers  of  health  against  any  social  ill.  It 
is  society's  laboriously  acquired  legal  anti-toxin 
for  the  parasites  that  prey  upon  it. 

Unescapable  Conflicts. 

Such  a  socialization  of  all  "  rights  "  was  in- 
evitable, naturally.  It  is  the  fruit  of  that 
process  by  which  nature  prepares  all  life  to 
survive  and  progress.  In  all  types  and  species 
which  survive,  individual  members  are  provided 
with  capacities  of  development  in  the  line  of  the 
species'  evolution — instincts,  habits  and  means 
of  self-preservation,  of  reproduction  and  means 
of  protecting  offspring.  From  time  to  time 
destructive  enemies  appear  which  threaten  the 
perpetuation  of  a  species.  Nature,  in  turn,  de- 
velops within  the  species  the  means  or  capacity 
of  safety  and  self-preservation.  In  this  way  the 
healthy  blood  of  most  species  of  animals  has 
gradually  developed  the  power  of  throwing 
off  or  destroying  disease  agents  which  have 
menaced  the  species  in  the  past,  and  gradually 
attained  immunity.  In  some  cases  the  enemy 
almost  destroys  a  species  before  the  means  of 
defense    or    immunity    is    developed.     With 


138    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

keener  intelligences,  the  higher  species  naturally 
more  readily  acquire  protection  and  immunity 
from  the  attacks  of  lower  species  which  prey 
upon  them. 

Man,  the  crowning  species  of  creation,  adds 
to  natural  instincts  the  light  of  reason  and  the 
guidance  of  conscience.  Only  a  subtle,  disguised 
enemy,  directed  by  man  himself,  could  possibly 
menace  the  human  species.  Such  an  enemy  is 
alcohol.  Its  poisoning  effect  is  covered  up  by  its 
appeal  to  the  motive  of  elation  and  the  motive  of 
oblivion  alike.  As  the  injury  it  does  its  victim 
grows,  so  grows  the  strength  of  the  oblivion  or 
narcosis  motive  for  more  drink;  so  grows  like- 
wise the  grip  of  the  drug  effect ;  so  also  wane  the 
victim's  vital  resources  for  resistance.  With  the 
truth  respecting  it  hidden,  naturally  the  race's 
struggles  against  it  in  the  past  were  vain  in  the 
end.  Society  was  oblivious  of  its  own  peril  as 
governments  and  private  citizens  joined  in  ex- 
ploiting the  public  with  the  insidious  drug. 

Yet  it  was  inevitable  that  in  time  the  human 
race  should  isolate  this  enemy,  uncover  the 
truth  respecting  it,  and  penetrate  all  its  dis- 
guises. Now  patient,  inexorable  science  has 
exposed  not  only  the  social  falsities  of  the  alco- 
hol traffic,  but  the  psychological  fraudulencies 
of  the  drink  cult  itself. 

Applying  the  Scientific  Method. 

The  conquering,  scientific  method  by  which 
man  is  steadily  winning  the  mastery  of  circum- 
stances, consists  essentially  in :  First,  establish- 


GENEKAL  PEINCIPLES  139 

ing  a  real  objective,  and  keeping  this  objective 
before  the  mind;  second,  analyzing  the  ob- 
jective, to  see  it  as  an  effect  and  establish  its 
various  causal  factors ;  third,  to  work  out  gen- 
eral and  detailed  plans  for  its  attainment  in 
accord  with  the  relative  importance  of  its  causal 
factors,  applying  to  the  execution  of  the  plan 
and  all  of  its  parts  unrelenting  hard  work. 
Humanly  speaking,  this  method  of  analysis  and 
procedure  is  irresistible.  It  can  be  well  illus- 
trated by  the  relative  execution  of  the  ordnance 
of  the  contending  fleets  in  the  battle  of  Santiago. 
The  Spanish  fleet  had  good  ships,  homogeneous, 
up-to-date,  all  of  twenty-one  knots  trial  speed, 
with  good  guns,  good  armour,  good  machinery. 
The  American  fleet  was  made  up  of  a  motley 
conglomeration  of  heterogeneous  ships  of  vary- 
ing speeds,  the  result  of  a  neglectful,  happy-go- 
lucky,  non-consecutive  naval  policy  on  the  part 
of  Congress,  the  battleships  being  of  only  six- 
teen knots  trial  speed.  Disinterested  foreign 
experts  estimated  the  Spanish  fleet  as  superior 
to  the  American,  especially  after  the  destruction 
of  the  Maine.  The  Spanish  fleet  had  brave  of- 
ficers and  enlisted  men,  who  died  at  their  posts 
of  duty  like  the  noble  men  they  were.  To  this 
day,  the  world  cannot  understand  how  it  was 
possible  for  the  American  fleet  totally  to  destroy 
the  Spanish  fleet,  as  no  fleet  had  ever  totally 
destroyed  another  in  the  history  of  the  world; 
or  how  it  was  possible  for  the  American  fleet 
to  gain  the  victory  without  substantial  loss,  as 
no  fleet  in  history  had  ever  gained  such  a  vie- 


140    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

tory  without  serious  loss  of  ships  and  men. 
The  secret  lay  in  the  simple  fact  that  the  Amer- 
ican fleet  was  prepared  according  to  the  scien- 
tific method  and  the  Spanish  fleet  was  not. 
Spanish  battleships  of  twenty-one  accredited 
knots  made  but  sixteen  knots  in  battle.  Amer- 
ican battleships  of  sixteen  accredited  knots 
made  seventeen  knots  in  battle. 

As  naval  constructor  with  Admiral  Sampson, 
for  instance,  my  duty  of  preparing  the  ships  for 
maintaining  their  stability  when  damaged  and 
for  fighting  fire  and  conflagration  in  battle,  took 
me  to  all  the  vessels  of  the  fleet.  I  marvelled 
at  the  activity  on  every  ship.  Everybody  was 
busy,  day  and  night,  from  the  captain  down  to 
the  last  apprentice  boy;  and  all  were  working 
according  to  plan,  general  and  detailed,  to  at- 
tain efficiency  in  every  element  bearing  upon 
the  great  objective,  victory  when  battle  came. 

Likewise,  I  had  an  opportunity  to  judge  of 
the  conditions  in  the  Spanish  fleet  from  a  con- 
versation with  Admiral  Cervera  when  I  called 
on  him  while  he  was  a  prisoner  at  Annapolis. 
(He  had  chivalrously  called  on  me  when  I  was 
a  prisoner  in  the  Morro  at  Santiago. )  He  was 
talking  about  the  battle,  when  I  ventured  to 
suggest  that  the  conflagration  on  board  his  ships 
must  have  been  fierce ;  that  I  had  just  come  from 
them,  and,  in  fact,  was  organizing  an  expedi- 
tion to  raise  his  flagship,  the  Maria  Theresa. 
"  You  cannot  conceive  how  fierce  it  was,"  he  re- 
plied. "  On  the  Maria  Theresa,  for  instance, 
one  of  the  first  shot?  that  struck  cut  the  fire- 


GENEBAL  PEINCIPLES  141 

main.  The  next  shot  set  ns  on  fire.  With 
the  fire-main  gone  we  could  not  fight  the  fire. 
The  ship  burned  like  tinder.  There  was  not  a 
space  as  big  as  the  palm  of  your  hand  where 
life  could  have  remained.  An  insect  could  not 
have  lived.  We  were  compelled  to  beach  the 
ship  and  leap  into  the  sea."  "May  I  ask 
whether  you  had  cut  out  your  woodwork  and 
thrown  overboard  your  inflammable  materials 
and  subdivided  your  fire-main  for  battle  con- 
ditions?" I  asked.  "Oh,  something  of  that 
kind  did  occur  to  me  once,  when  the  Fleet  was 
at  the  Cape  de  Verde  Islands,  and  I  wrote  to 
the  Minister  of  Marine  in  Madrid  on  the  sub- 
ject, but  he  never  acknowledged  my  letter  and  I 
let  the  matter  drop."  I  said  nothing  further  on 
the  subject,  but  to  myself  I  thought,  "  Now  I 
understand  how  the  victory  was  won."  The 
contrast  came  home  to  me  the  more  strongly,  be- 
cause the  duty  of  insuring  this  very  element  of 
efficiency  had  fallen  to  my  lot.  With  Admiral 
Sampson's  authority  I  had  taken  the  carpenter's 
gang  on  each  ship,  and,  starting  at  the  bow,  had 
gone  through  to  the  stern  on  every  deck,  cutting 
out  the  woodwork  and  throwing  overboard  in- 
flammable materials.  We  even  sawed  down  the 
wooden  partitions  between  the  officers'  state- 
rooms and  gave  up  the  furniture,  standing  up 
at  meals.  The  whole  surface  of  the  ocean  was 
strewn  with  the  wreckage.  We  stripped  the 
ships  to  the  bare  iron.  We  subdivided  the  fire- 
mains  with  special  valves  to  localize  any  in- 
jury, and  reorganized  the  whole  fire-drill  for 


142    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

battle  conditions.  I  thought,  after  the  conver- 
sation with  Admiral  Cervera,  of  the  contrast 
between  the  Spanish  and  American  method  of 
preparation,  recalling  his  words,  "The  Theresa's 
fire-main  was  shot  away  in  one  place  and  we 
could  not  fight  fire."  The  New  York's  fire- 
main  could  have  been  shot  away  in  forty  places, 
for  we  had  prepared  special  hose-connections 
down  at  the  fire  pumps  themselves,  in  the  bowels 
of  the  ship,  and  had  special  hose  at  hand  ready 
with  lines  tied  to  the  end.  Without  any  fire- 
main,  in  case  of  fire,  we  would  have  promptly 
hauled  this  special  hose  up  through  the  hatches 
and  have  extinguished  the  fire  without  slacken- 
ing the  service  of  a  single  gun.  Applying  the 
contrast  in  efficiency  in  this  particular  to  others 
it  becomes  clear  how  our  victory  was  won  before 
the  battle  was  fought.  In  the  same  way  have 
all  great  victories  been  won.  Similarly  we 
must  win  the  great  biological  victory  for  man- 
kind in  the  elimination  of  the  alcohol  parasite, 
by  bringing  to  bear  the  conquering  method, 
establishing  the  great  objective,  keeping  it  al- 
ways in  view,  thoroughly  analyzing  it  in  all  its 
elements  and  preparing  scientific  plans  in  ac- 
cord with  them,  and  then  executing  them  with 
tireless  energy. 

The  Great  Objective. 

The  objective  of  all  wise  social  endeavours 
must  accord  with  the  objective  of  human  life 
itself.  What  is  the  objective  of  human  life? 
How  can  we  correctly  establish  and  define  that 


GENEKAL  PBINCIPLES  143 

objective?  By  recourse  to  Nature?  What  is 
Nature  trying  to  do  with  the  human  species? 
What  is  the  line  of  human  evolution?  Every 
species  has  its  main  line  of  evolution,  the  line 
along  which,  from  generation  to  generation,  it 
tends  to  build. 

The  human  race  is  not  evolving,  except  inci- 
dentally, along  the  line  of  the  physical  man. 
Nature  completed  the  general  physical  evolu- 
tion of  man  many  ages  ago  and  now  allows  only 
about  twenty-one  or  two  years  of  his  life-span 
to  the  general  completion  of  his  physical  de- 
velopment. In  the  Scriptures  (Phil.  3:14  and 
Eph.  4 :  13 )  Paul  spiritually  interprets  the  ob- 
jective as  follows :  "  The  high  calling  of  God  in 
Christ  Jesus "  and  "  till  we  all  come  in  the 
unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  meas- 
ure of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ." 
This  spiritual  evolution  has  its  essential  phys- 
ical expression  and  basis.  It  is  found  in  the 
evolution  going  on  in  the  gray  matter  on  the 
surface  of  the  convolutions  of  the  cortex  of  the 
cerebrum,  the  seat  of  the  will  power,  of  the 
moral  sense,  of  the  spiritual  activities.  Nature 
is  striving  to  produce  a  race  of  masterful  men, 
masters  not  only  of  circumstances,  but  of  them- 
selves. To  this  end  she  is  erecting  ever  more 
complex  and  effective  brain-machinery  for  the 
use  of  the  spiritual  faculties.  Cooperating  with 
the  human  soul,  she  not  only  adds  this  machin- 
ery in  the  individual  brain  to  the  complete 
measure  of  an  individual's  effective  use  of  it, 


144    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

but,  unless  interfered  with,  stamps  these  gains 
upon  the  germ  plasm  and  so  hands  them  poten- 
tially on  to  the  succeeding  generation.  Nature 
is  trying  to  produce  a  race  of  God-fearing  men, 
living  in  the  spirit  of  brotherly  love,  controlled 
and  directed  by  moral  and  spiritual  forces. 
Nature  is  trying  to  produce  a  world  in  which 
moral  and  spiritual  forces  reign  supreme  in  the 
hearts  of  men.  Interpreted  through  Scriptures 
and  through  nature,  God's  purpose  is  the  devel- 
opment of  the  "perfect  man"  of  Christlike 
attributes  in  the  true  image  of  his  Maker. 

Character-building  is  the  line  of  human  evolu- 
tion. A  man  does  not  have  to  stop  character- 
building  when  he  is  twenty-one  years  old.  If 
he  does  his  part,  Nature  and  God  will  cooperate 
with  him  to  continue  character-building  all  the 
days  of  his  life.  That  each  human  being  who 
comes  into  the  world  may  develop  to  the  high- 
est level  of  character,  and  that  each  generation 
may  rise  on  the  average  to  a  higher  level,  as 
much  higher  as  possible  above  the  average  of  the 
previous  generation — this  is  the  Great  Ob- 
jective, the  objective  of  Nature  as  well  as  the 
will  of  God  in  the  world. 

The  true  measure  of  all  things,  then,  is  their 
effect  upon  this  objective  of  Nature  and  God. 
By  this  standard  we  can  compute  the  worth  of 
an  individual's  conduct  and  life,  the  wisdom  of 
a  policy,  law,  or  institution.  All  true  religion, 
all  governments  exist  for  the  purpose  of  for- 
warding this  natural  and  divine  objective. 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  what  groups  of  men 


GENEEAL  PEINOIPLES  145 

do  to  the  top  parts  of  their  brains,  becomes  of 
infinite  moment  to  the  whole  race  and  to  genera- 
tions yet  unborn.  Looked  at  merely  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  brain's  line  of  evolutionary 
growth  the  general  use  of  a  drug  having  the 
series  of  effects  upon  the  top  brain  detailed  in 
previous  pages  cannot  but  have  serious  social 
consequences,  affecting  the  perpetuity  of  na- 
tions and  civilizations.  Is  this  scientific  deduc- 
tion borne  out  by  the  facts? 


VI 

ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS 

Social  Integration  and  the  Nation. 

MAN  is  not  only  a  mating  animal  but  a 
social  being.  His  development  and 
progress  in  the  line  of  Ms  evolution 
can  only  be  in  proportion  to  the  growth  in  the 
integrity  and  stability  of  the  family,  and  the 
integration  of  families  into  larger  social  groups. 
This  is  because  development  comes  by  the  exer- 
cise and  use  of  faculties.  Only  in  the  family, 
and  among  large  numbers  of  families  living  in 
social  groups,  can  the  higher  attributes  of  in- 
tellect and  the  highest  attributes  of  spirit,  such 
as  love,  service,  self-sacrifice,  find  highest  op- 
portunity and  receive  that  systematic  exercise 
necessary  to  individual  development  and  racial 
progress.  The  individual  and  the  social  group 
act  and  react  upon  each  other.  In  the  larger, 
more  developed  social  groups,  the  more  frequent 
calls  and  opportunities  for  exercising  the 
higher  faculties  develop  more  highly  socialized 
individuals  and  families.  These  in  turn  permit 
of  higher  social  integrations  in  which  the  con- 
sciousness of  kind  and  social  sympathy  includes 

146 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  147 

larger  areas,  greater  numbers,  and  more  widely 
diverging  types. 

The  law  of  growth  of  structure  and  differen- 
tiation of  function  leads  to  the  organization  of 
groups  of  nations  and  will  lead  ultimately  to 
an  organization  of  the  human  race  in  which  the 
individual  nation  will  remain  the  cardinal  unit 
much  as  the  individual  state  has  remained  the 
cardinal  unit  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

The  extent  of  social  integration  and  the 
solidity  of  the  social  structure  will  depend  upon 
the  average  standard  of  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual citizen — that  is,  the  degree  of  his  social 
development.  Alcohol,  in  lowering  the  standard 
of  character  of  the  world's  citizenship  and  de- 
socializing  the  race,  is  the  great  factor  limiting 
the  development  of  larger  units  and  groups, 
with  the  great  advantages  that  would  follow, 
and  is  the  underlying  cause  of  instability  and 
inefficiency  in  existing  units.  It  is  the  para- 
mount factor  in  holding  back  free  institutions, 
in  preventing  harmony  among  the  nations,  and 
the  approach  of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

The  rate  of  the  rapidity  of  social  integration 
is  dependent,  in  a  large  measure,  on  the  develop- 
ment of  the  community,  and  the  community  of 
interests  between  its  composing  units,  particu- 
larly by  cooperative  action  against  the  common 
menace,  and  by  the  advantages  and  rewards 
from  common  action  in  competition  with  other 
social  units. 

With  the  development  of  modern  science,  the 
extension  of  man's  control  over  nature's  forces, 


148    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

and  the  swift  expansion  of  industrial  activities 
offering  almost  unlimited  possibilities  for  in- 
creasing the  fields  of  cooperation,  we  have  been 
witnessing  a  general  spread  and  intensification 
of  the  spirit  of  nationalism.  The  world  is  now 
at  the  height  of  the  period  of  nationalism  and 
with  the  grouping  of  nations  produced  by  the 
great  war  we  are  at  the  dawn  of  the  period  of 
organized  internationalism.  Advanced  minds 
are  now  thinking  in  these  terms,  but  the  people 
at  large  still  think  in  terms  of  the  nation.  The 
welfare  of  the  nation  is  still  the  subconscious 
objective  of  citizens  everywhere,  though  com- 
radeship in  arms  has  broken  down  many  na- 
tional barriers  and  is  creating  a  subconscious 
interest  in  allied  groups.  Patriotism  has  a 
high  place  among  Christian  virtues  and  offers 
the  highest  inspiration  to  duty  and  self-sacrifice 
yet  achieved  by  masses  of  men.  Citizens  will 
still  make  any  sacrifices  required  for  home  and 
native  land.  The  great  war  has  created  un- 
precedented opportunities  for  prosecuting  na- 
tional reforms  calculated  to  promote  the 
strength  and  efficiency  of  nations.  National 
interest  in  war  problems  turned  public  atten- 
tion sharply  to  the  menace  which  the  alcohol 
parasite  is  to  every  element  of  strength  and 
efficiency.  It  is  an  opportune  time  to  consider 
alcohol  and  nations. 

Alcohol  and  National  Nutrition. 

As  mentioned  before,  the  two  inclusive  factors 
in  the  progress  of  any  organism  are  nutrition 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  149 

and  exercise.  Nutrition,  in  the  scientific  sense, 
includes  all  those  contributions  to  an  organism 
which  are  utilized  to  maintain  its  structure  and 
sustain  its  functions.  In  organisms  composed 
of  cells,  unintelligent  units,  nutrition  is  by 
purely  physical  elements  and  the  machinery  for 
its  distribution  works  automatically  once  the 
nutriment  is  appropriated.  Human  society, 
however,  is  of  a  higher  order.  It  is  built  of  in- 
telligent units  which  are  capable  of  working  at 
cross-purposes  and  even  of  waging  destructive 
war  upon  each  other.  Man's  body,  for  instance, 
is  composed  of  cells  which  have  lived  in  such 
thoroughly  organized  and  mutually  dependent 
and  mutually  helpful  relations  for  so  many 
millions  of  cell-generations  that  they  function 
together  automatically.  Man  himself,  how- 
ever, the  "  cell "  of  the  great  social  organisms, 
is  come  so  lately  in  his  race-history  into  highly 
organized  relations  with  his  fellows,  is  as  yet 
so  rudimentarily  adjusted  and  habituated  to 
organized  relationship,  that  he  functions  far 
from  automatically  in  his  social  articulations. 
In  addition,  he  is  a  fluid  unit.  A  particular 
cell  in  the  body  has  always  the  same  given  and 
limited  functions.  A  man  is  not  so,  socially. 
He  may  gravitate  from  lower  to  higher  orders 
of  social  service  in  his  own  lifetime.  Further- 
more, he  is  self -determining.  His  perfect  social 
functioning  has  to  be  the  fruit  not  only  of  a 
sound  body  but  of  truly  socialized  will,  intellect 
and  affections.  The  articulation  of  unintelli- 
gent cells  is  physical.     The  social  articulation 


150    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACB 

of  men  is  partly  physical  and  supremely  spiri- 
tual. Man  creates  the  arteries  of  social  trans- 
portation and  operates  them  consciously.  He 
creates  machinery  whereby  he  works  at  his  own 
socialization,  spiritually.  Hence  if,  in  the  later 
portions  of  this  chapter  under  the  headings 
"  nutrition  "  and  "  exercise,"  the  reader  finds 
enumerated  in  the  one  field  other  things  than 
mere  food,  and  in  the  other  fields  items  outside 
the  realm  of  physical  effort,  let  him  remember 
that  he  is  considering  society,  the  superlative 
organism,  whose  individual  cells  are  intelligent, 
self -determining  human  beings;  and  that 
"  nutrition  "  and  "  exercise,"  when  applied  to  a 
nation,  cover  more  things  than  food  and  the  use 
of  muscles. 

America  is  physically  the  best  fed  nation  in 
the  world,  but  in  America,  as  in  all  the  nations, 
there  are  disturbing  quantities  of  people  under- 
fed. The  spectacle  of  diverting  vast  stocks  of 
precious  foodstuffs  from  the  mouths  of  the 
hungry  in  order  to  manufacture  beverage 
poison  with  which  to  further  weaken  and 
vitiate  the  people  is  arousing  the  indignation, 
not  only  of  the  hungry  themselves,  but  of  fair- 
minded  people  the  world  over.  Under  war 
jjressure  the  most  fully  involved  nations  took 
some  kind  of  action  to  curtail,  in  part  at  least, 
this,  the  largest  source  of  food  perversion  and 
food  waste,  in  most  cases  laying  the  stricter 
embargo  upon  the  manufacture  of  distilled 
liquors,  as  though  the  alcohol  in  these  were  of 
a  less  harmful  sort  than  that  in  fermented 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  151 

liquors.  The  fact  that  similar  industrial  pres- 
sure has  not  obtained  in  the  past  in  days  of 
peace  has  tended  to  blind  nations  to  the  fact 
that  equally  serious  wastages  of  food  have  been 
taking  place  constantly. 

The  expenditure  of  labour  in  the  manufacture 
and  distribution  of  liquor  is  a  waste  even 
greater  than  the  expenditure  of  food  materials. 
The  liquor  traffic  and  its  apologists  have  long 
boasted  of  the  number  of  men  it  employed  in 
production  and  distribution,  directly  and  in- 
directly. Accepting  their  own  figures,  we  must 
estimate  at  about  a  half  a  million  the  man-power 
turned  away  from  productive  pursuits  in  the 
United  States  by  the  liquor  traffic  before  the 
war. 

But  serious  as  is  the  wastage  and  perversion 
of  foodstuffs  and  the  diversion  of  labour  caused 
by  the  liquor  traffic,  these  injuries  are  small  in 
comparison  with  the  harm  inflicted  upon  the 
health,  morals  and  socializing  processes  of  the 
nation  through  the  wholesale  poisoning  and  its 
consequent  degeneracy.  The  fact  that,  in  the 
public  discussions  attending  war  legislation 
against  the  liquor  traffic,  emphasis  was  placed 
on  food  wastage  rather  than  upon  the  harm  in- 
flicted by  the  poison  showed  the  lack  of  in- 
formation and  of  proportion  in  the  public  mind 
and  the  limited  degree  to  which  the  average  man 
realizes  the  deadly  nature  of  this  drug.  If  so 
much  of  wholesome  legislation  has  come  from 
such  an  imperfect  realization  of  the  lesser  evil, 
what  may  we  not  expect  when  nations  ulti- 


152    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

mately  realize  that  the  liquor  industry  instead 
of  giving  value  received  for  the  peoples'  sub- 
stance is  turning  the  grain  into  poison,  and  is 
systematically  degenerating  organized  society 
with  the  most  destructive  of  all  poisons,  striking 
not  only  at  its  welfare  and  success  in  war,  but 
at  its  very  life. 

Taking  conditions  when  the  great  war  began, 
America  can  be  said  to  have  been  the  soberest 
of  the  great  nations.  It  is  on  the  side  of  con- 
servatism to  estimate  that  five  per  cent,  of 
America's  producers  were  heavy  drinkers, 
twenty-five  per  cent,  were  temperate  regular 
drinkers,  and  fully  fifty  per  cent,  were  occa- 
sional drinkers.  In  the  light  of  accurate 
scientific  research,  it  is  conservative  to  estimate 
that  the  total  producing  efficiency  of  the  nation 
was  thus  being  reduced  fully  twenty-five  per 
cent.  The  Minister  of  Finance  in  Russia  esti- 
mated that  during  the  prohibition  period  of  the 
Empire,  with  one-third  of  the  producers  under 
arms,  the  producing  power  of  that  nation  was 
increased  fully  fifty  per  cent.  The  Minister 
of  Munitions  in  England  estimated  an  increase 
of  over  twenty  per  cent,  in  producing  efficiency 
in  localities  where  only  moderate  regulatory 
measures  were  enforced,  chiefly  a  reduction  in 
the  hours  of  sale.  Taking  the  conservative  esti- 
mate of  twenty-five  per  cent,  as  the  former  loss 
of  producing  efficiency  in  America,  this  would 
be  the  equivalent  of  more  than  ten  billion  dol- 
lars a  year — the  value  of  all  the  farm  products 
of  the  nation.    We  can  form  some  idea  of  the 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  153 

stupendous  loss  this  means  every  year  when  we 
realize  that  it  is  equivalent  to  a  loss  of  the  whole 
wheat  crop,  the  entire  barley,  rye,  oats,  rice, 
corn,  hay  and  forage  crops,  all  the  cotton,  wool 
and  hemp,  and  all  the  fruits,  vegetables,  sugar 
cane  and  sugar  beets. 

While  inflicting  this  staggering  economic  loss 
upon  America,  the  private  individuals  connected 
with  the  liquor  traffic  were  also  levying  a  direct 
money  cost  of  two  and  one-half  billions  of  dol- 
lars a  year,  the  total  retail  selling  price  of  the 
liquors  dispensed.  All  civilized  governments 
punish  fraud,  requiring  the  return  of  actual 
value  in  exchange  for  money.  The  drink  cus- 
tomers, instead  of  receiving  value  for  their  two 
and  one-half  billions,  suffered  an  injury  to  their 
•earning  power  of  ten  billions  a  year,  and  this 
took  no  account  of  the  deeper  injury  and  loss  in 
health  and  morals  and  character.  The  ordinary 
highwayman  is  satisfied  to  get  his  victim's 
money.  The  liquor  traffic,  in  lifting  its  victims' 
money,  injects  a  poison  which  impairs  the  func- 
tionings  of  their  limbs,  sears  their  brains  and 
mars  their  souls. 

Civilized  governments  make  it  a  rule  to  insist 
on  fair  play  between  business  rivals.  But, 
through  the  use  of  this  habit-forming  drug,  the 
liquor  traffic  gets  so  effective  a  first  mortgage 
upon  the  earnings  of  millions  of  drinkers  that  no 
legitimate  business  can  compete  with  that  traffic 
on  fair  terms.  The  American  liquor  traffic  was 
collecting  in  the  course  of  a  year  a  sum  equal  to 
more  than  one-half  of  all  the  cash  money  in 


154    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

circulation  in  the  nation — the  cream  of  its  cash 
transactions.  By  lowering  the  efficiency  of  the 
millions  of  its  victims,  thus  reducing  their  earn- 
ing power  and  therefore  their  purchasing 
power,  the  traffic  strikes  also  at  the  integrity  of 
every  other  business.  It  is  almost  incredible  that 
the  legitimate  businesses  of  the  world  should 
have  tolerated  so  long  this  unscrupulous  rival 
and  privileged  outlaw.  It  can  only  be  explained 
by  the  equally  persistent  ignorance  of  business 
men  regarding  it. 

Ordinarily  a  business  man  realizes  full  well 
that  wealth  must  be  produced  and  that  loss  of 
productive  power  means  loss  of  business  to  a 
community;  but  by  a  strange  logic  liquor  has 
persuaded  many  business  men,  a  few  shrewd, 
far-sighted  bankers  among  them,  that  the  liquor 
traffic  increases  the  business  of  a  community. 
To  the  ignorant  and  the  deceived  must  be  added 
those  who  profit  by  the  patronage  of  the  liquor 
world  and  those  who  are  terrorized  by  it,  ere 
we  begin  to  understand  the  influence  the  traffic 
has  exerted  in  the  business  world. 

One  of  its  hoariest  deceptions  is  the  claim  that 
its  paying  of  special  revenues  reduces  taxation. 
This  fallacy  is  especially  prevalent  in  liquor- 
ridden  communities  where  corruption  controls 
politics  and  taxes  are  heavy,  and  where,  while 
the  revenue  from  liquor  is  large  and  visible,  the 
still  greater  charges  and  burdens  laid  upon 
society  as  the  result  of  drink  are  not  sorted  out 
and  known.  This  fallacy  has  a  surface  appeal 
to  all  who  selfishly  place  their  own  interests 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  155 

above  public  welfare,  but  it  is  without  economic 
foundation.  All  the  revenues  paid  by  the  traffic 
do  not  defray  the  cost  of  the  crime,  pauperism, 
and  insanity  produced  by  it  and  laid  in  the  form 
of  direct  taxes  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  com- 
munity at  large,  while  the  extent  to  which  it  im- 
pairs productiveness  and  thrift,  which  alone 
create  wealth  and  increase  legitimate  taxable 
values,  leaves  it  a  stupendous  financial  debtor 
to  society. 

The  Minister  of  Finance  in  Kussia,  M.  Bark, 
who  had  violently  opposed  the  institution  of 
nation-wide  prohibition  in  the  Eussian  Empire, 
reported  after  prohibition  had  been  in  effect  for 
the  first  year  that,  while  the  state  had  lost  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars  of  liquor  revenues, 
the  treasury  was  not  embarrassed,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  its  gigantic  war  difficulties  were  over- 
come by  the  increase  of  productiveness  and  the 
enhancement  of  profits  and  of  taxable  values 
generally.1  The  wise,  the  true  solution  of  the 
world's  present  alarming  financial  problems  is 
world-wide  ending  of  the  beverage  alcohol  traffic. 

Commercial  competition  for  the  markets  of 
the  world  has  been  greatly  intensified  by  the 
war.  Hereafter  nations  must  use  every  means 
for  increasing  national  efficiency  or  drop  behind 
in  the  race,  whether  during  peace  or  war.  The 
loss  of  efficiency  from  drink  is  so  great  and  so 
fundamental  that  losses  from  all  other  sources 
combined  are  only  of  secondary  importance. 
The  swiftness  and  thoroughness  of  the  sup- 

1  E.  J.  Dillon.    Contemporary  Review,  March,  1915. 


156    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

pression  of  drink  in  a  nation  will,  in  a  large 
measure,  determine  the  rapidity  of  its  recovery 
from  the  economic  and  financial  burdens  of  war, 
and  will  determine  in  large  degree  the  position 
it  will  achieve  in  the  future  commercial  and  in- 
dustrial struggles  of  the  world.  In  this  regard 
the  great  war  was  a  scavenger  agency,  forcing  a 
militant  grapple  with  internal  national  evils, 
and  it  will  ultimately  compel  the  elimination  of 
any  nations  too  far  gone  in  degeneracy  to  rally. 
That  drinking  nations  will  be  unable  to  endure 
the  fierce  competitions  ahead  stands  out  more 
clearly  when  we  realize  that  the  heavy  loss  of 
efficiency  is  but  an  outward  manifestation  of  a 
morbid  condition  deep  in  the  body  politic  and 
body  social.  A  drinking  nation  is  literally  sick 
with  a  chronic,  organic  illness. 

Sick  benefit  society  records  show  that  the 
number  of  days  of  absence  from  work  for  sick- 
ness increases  directly  with  drinking  habits. 
Manifestly  the  same  disadvantage  must  apply  be- 
tween drinking  nations  and  abstaining  nations. 
The  large  lists  of  absentees  after  pay  days  and 
the  lowered  efficiency  and  marked  increase  in 
industrial  accidents  following  periods  of  drink- 
ing are  only  symptoms  of  a  diseased  condition. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  the  death 
rate  tells  the  story  with  gruesome  certainty. 
Kecords  of  the  French  National  Hospitals  show 
that  drink  in  France  about  doubles  the  number 
of  cases  of  consumption,  and  then  about  doubles 
the  mortality  of  this  disease.  Public  health 
agencies   are    trying   vigorously    to    suppress. 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  157 

the  spread  of  the  white  plague.  While  tak- 
ing manifold  precautions  on  divers  other  lines, 
they  are  dumb  before  the  great  underlying 
cause  of  the  ravages  of  this  great  scourge,  the 
liquor  traffic.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
abolition  of  alcohol  drinking  would  eventually 
eliminate  two-thirds  to  three-quarters  of  the 
ravages  of  tuberculosis  and  remove  the  white 
plague  from  the  list  of  serious  public  dangers. 

In  like  manner  drink  is  the  dominating  factor 
in  the  high  mortality  of  other  diseases  of  the 
lungs,  such  as  pneumonia,  and  in  diseases  of  the 
liver,  of  the  kidneys  and  stomach,  of  the  heart 
and  circulation,  and  of  the  nervous  system  and 
brain.  The  wide-spread  diseases  associated 
with  the  social  evil,  as  pointed  out  above,  are 
largely  the  offspring  of  the  liquor  traffic.  When 
we  realize  that  even  in  America,  the  youngest 
and  therefore  the  least  degenerate  of  the  great 
nations,  it  is  estimated  that  8,000,000  citizens 
have  syphilis,  and  we  know  that  the  mortality 
of  men  in  their  prime  is  practically  doubled  by 
drink,  we  begin  to  get  some  appreciation  of  the 
ghastly  toll  of  disease  and  death  exacted  by  the 
liquor  traffic  throughout  the  world. 

Taking  all  drinkers  together,  insurance 
records  show  that  about  one  hundred  and  eighty 
drinkers  die  to  each  one  hundred  of  average 
risks.  Human  lives  constitute  the  basis  of 
the  economic  as  well  as  the  military  power  of  a 
nation.  In  days  of  slavery  a  high  financial 
value  was  placed  on  the  life  of  a  slave.  How 
much  more  valuable,  economically,  is  the  life  of 


158    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

a  free  citizen  and  how  staggering  is  the  eco- 
nomic loss  to  a  nation  by  the  premature  death 
of  so  vast  a  number  of  its  citizens.  Whether 
we  measure  by  usual  economic  standards  or 
whether  we  measure  by  the  added  burdens  of 
disease  and  premature  death,  drink  to-day  is 
largely  sapping  the  vitality  and  destroying 
much  of  the  potential  wealth  of  the  world. 

Looking  upon  a  nation  as  an  organism,  and 
combining  production,  distribution  and  all 
economic  and  financial  activities  in  the  category 
of  nutrition,  we  must  conclude  that  drink  is  the 
great  cause  of  malnutrition  of  civilized  nations, 
as  of  individuals — is,  indeed,  an  overwhelmingly 
greater  cause  than  all  other  causes  combined. 
Now  that  the  great  war  has  thrown  open  the 
doors  of  the  world's  commerce  to  all  competitors 
on  equal  terms,  the  question  of  drink  will  abso- 
lutely determine  the  race.  The  sober  nations 
will  quickly  lead  and  surely  win.  The  drinking 
nations  will  steadily  fall  behind  and  finally 
drop  out.  Let  patriots  in  every  land  ask  them- 
selves the  question,  to  which  group  shall  our 
nation  belong? 

Alcohol  and  National  Exercise. 

As  fundamentally  as  drink  affects  the  nutri- 
tion of  a  nation,  so  fundamentally  it  affects  the 
exercise  of  national  functions  and  faculties. 
Under  exercise,  in  a  national  sense,  we  include 
all  those  vital  activities  and  sentiments  which 
develop  and  sustain  the  integrity  of  a  nation, 
which  develop  the  consciousness  and  the  spirit 
of  nationalism,  patriotism,  respect  for  authority, 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  159 

and  loyalty  to  national  ideals.  The  most  far- 
reaching  of  these  activities  are  those  applied  to 
citizens-to-be  in  the  plastic  periods  of  childhood 
and  youth,  and  are  embraced  under  the  word 
"  education/'  used  in  its  broadest  sense. 

Of  greatest  fundamental  importance  in  the 
education  of  a  nation  is  that  part  received  in 
the  home  at  the  hands  of  father  and  mother 
through  precept  and  example,  under  the  prompt- 
ing of  love.  We  have  seen  before  that  drink  is 
the  deadliest  enemy  of  the  home,  tending  to  in- 
capacitate men  and  women  for  the  duties  of 
parenthood.  As  such,  it  strikes  at  the  very 
foundation  of  the  nation,  at  the  heart  of  civili- 
zation. The  blow  is  double :  first,  in  depriving 
millions  of  the  nation's  children  of  the  love  and 
good  example  and  teaching  of  a  sober  father, 
and,  secondly,  in  dissipating  the  family  sub- 
stance, and  depriving  the  children  of  the  oppor- 
tunity for  education  and  of  those  necessities, 
comforts,  and  conveniences  which  create  an 
environment  in  the  home  suitable  for  the  proper 
development  of  the  child.  In  many  cases  the 
child  is  not  only  deprived  of  its  natural  right 
to  a  good  example  and  constant  guidance  from 
an  affectionate  father,  but  also  is  dwarfed  by 
neglect  and  warped  by  bad  example.  Where 
the  family  substance  is  dissipated,  it  is  the 
education  of  the  children  which  first  feels  the 
blow.  Even  with  compulsory  education  drink 
entails  at  the  best  laxness  of  compliance  with 
only  the  minimum  required  by  the  law. 

In  families  and  communities  where  drinking 


160    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

goes  on  in  the  home,  even  where  the  drinking  is 
classed  as  temperate  and  is  not  characterized 
by  drunkenness,  it  is  surprising  how  many 
parents  give  their  children  beer  and  wine. 
School  records  in  America  and  abroad  show 
that  even  the  most  temperate  of  such  practices 
cuts  deeply  into  the  scholarship  of  the  pupil 
and  gives  a  good  indication  of  the  blighting 
effect  drink  has  in  every  way  upon  the  young. 

In  the  most  abandoned  communities  there  is 
usually  some  semblance  of  respectability  in 
recognizing  that  saloons  should  be  kept  away 
from  the  schools.  It  is  notorious,  however,  that 
the  liquor  traffic  has  no  regard  for  such  regula- 
tions and  ordinances  and,  whenever  possible, 
shoves  its  saloons  within  these  forbidden  areas. 
As  previously  pointed  out,  investigations  indi- 
cate that  one-third  of  the  drunkards  contract 
drinking  habits  by  the  time  they  are  sixteen 
years  of  age.  It  has  also  been  pointed  out  how 
disastrous  alcohol  is  to  all  young  organisms. 
The  effect  upon  children  and  youth  is  utterly 
subversive,  not  only  with  respect  to  educational 
activities,  but  also  as  respects  morals.  This  is 
notably  evident  in  the  high  school  period,  the 
dangers  extending  to  the  girls,  even  though  they 
may  not  drink  themselves.  Investigation  will 
show,  if  general  knowledge  does  not  recognize, 
that  most  of  the  failures  in  college  are  due  to 
the  dissipation  of  the  time  and  the  substance  of 
students  through  drink,  and  this,  in  many 
cases,  where  college  opportunities  have  been 
given  only  by  the  heavy  sacrifices  of  others. 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  161 

The  deranging  effect  of  alcohol  in  the  mould- 
ing of  a  nation's  life  is  not  confined  to  the  educa- 
tional system  proper,  nor  to  the  plastic  period 
of  youth,  but  permeates  the  whole  social  at- 
mosphere, injuriously  affecting  the  nation's 
standards,  its  business  ethics,  its  morals  and 
religion,  its  politics  and  government,  its  liber- 
ties and  institutions,  its  internal  problems  and 
its  reactions  to  external  dangers. 

The  foundation  of  business  ethics  is  the  will- 
ingness and  desire  to  return  in  service  full  value 
for  substance  received.  On  this  principle, 
gambling  of  all  kinds  is  discouraged  and  usually 
prohibited.  The  liquor  traffic  not  only  does  not 
give  return  in  value  but  inflicts  injury  in  pro- 
portion to  the  substance  received.  It  is  not  ex- 
ceptional for  a  man,  with  a  pocket  full  of  money 
on  pay-day,  to  come  to  his  senses  later  with  all 
this  money  gone,  whether  he  finds  himself  in  a 
jail,  in  the  sawdust  provided  by  the  saloon, 
or  in  the  brothel  over  the  saloon,  or  whether  he 
has  been  taken  to  a  saddened  home.  The  cen- 
tral motive  underlying  the  liquor  traffic  is  the 
opposite  of  that  of  service.  It  is  the  motive  of 
robbery  by  inflicting  harm. 

The  natural  attitude  of  men  who  rob  toward 
other  men  and  toward  society  is  that  of  violence. 
It  can  be  assumed  that  a  robber,  if  necessary  for 
success,  will  be  a  murderer.  It  is  notoriously 
true  that  saloon  men  in  a  community  will  not 
hesitate  to  practice  coercion  and  even  blackmail 
upon  merchants,  bankers,  and  other  business 
men.     These  men,  by  submitting,  naturally  lose 


162    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

their  business  self-respect,  and  the  business  of 
the  community  lives  under  a  demoralizing  con- 
dition of  suppression  and  intimidation,  which 
extends  from  the  wage-earners  to  the  business 
men,  the  professional  men,  the  press,  the  teach- 
ers, and  at  last,  even  to  ministers  and  religious 
leaders.  All  this  has  a  cumulative  evil  effect 
upon  politics  and  government.1  The  liquor 
traffic  is  thus  the  great  vitiator  of  the  business 
standards  and  ethics  of  a  nation,  which  stand- 
ards, in  a  free  people,  must  be  high.  No  nation 
with  debased  business  ethics  will  ever  be  able 
to  maintain  for  long  public  liberty  and  justice. 
Irving  Fisher  said,  "  I  think  no  student  of 
American  politics  would  deny  that  the  most 
formidable  as  well  as  the  most  unscrupulous, 
the  most  demoralizing  special  interest  in  Amer- 
ican politics  to-day  is  the  liquor  interest." 

All  the  social  forces  which  influence  national 
life  are  to  be  judged  in  the  last  analysis  by  their 
effect  upon  the  average  character  of  its  citizens. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  in  a  democracy. 
While  the  liquor  traffic  is  a  directly  destructive, 
demoralizing,  anti-social  force,  the  most  deadly 
havoc  it  wreaks  upon  a  nation  is  in  the  degen- 
eracy it  inflicts  upon  so  many  of  its  citizens, 
seriously  lowering  the  average  standard  of 
character  and  conduct.  The  extent  of  this  de- 
generacy can  best  be  realized  by  taking  into  ac- 

1  Irving  Fisher,  Congressional  Record,  Senate  Commit- 
tee on  German-American  Alliance  and  Anti-American 
Activities  of  Brewers,  Brewers  in  Texas,  Brewers  in 
Pittsburgh,  etc.    Crowell. 


ALCOHOL  ASTD  NATIONS  163 

count  the  fact  that  every  one  of  the  millions 
who  drink  in  any  form  suffers  degenerating  re- 
sults in  direct  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
alcohol  consumed. 

As  alcoholic  degeneracy  progresses  in  a  man 
he  becomes  less  and  less  a  social  being.  He  is 
increasingly  animated  by  brute  instincts,  and 
less  and  less  by  regard  for  his  fellow  man,  for 
his  country  and  for  humanity,  until  he  becomes 
at  last  anti-social  and  criminal.  Every  one 
knows  how  social  gatherings  become  boisterous 
as  drinking  goes  on,  attended  by  disorder  and 
at  last  by  violence.  Most  of  the  mob  violence  in 
America  and  all  countries,  in  our  own  day  and 
those  recorded  in  history,  have  been  attended 
by,  and  manifestly  have  been  largely  the  out- 
growth of,  general  drinking.  The  first  thing 
the  authorities  do  in  such  cases  is  to  close  the 
saloons  and  cut  off  drink. 

Every  one  knows  that  the  saloon  is  the  in- 
cubator and  nursery  for  crime,  plots,  and  con- 
spiracies, and  that  drink  attends  directly,  as  a 
cause,  the  bulk  of  the  crime  of  the  world  and 
nearly  all  the  crimes  of  violence.  Most  people 
understand  the  brutal  temporary  transforma- 
tion which  heavy  drinking  produces  in  men  at 
the  time,  but  few  realize  its  like  permanent 
effect  when  oft  repeated,  even  though  in  mod- 
erate quantities. 

In  view  of  alcohol's  unescapable,  degenerat- 
ing effect  on  the  individual,  as  set  forth  in  Part 
One  of  this  book,  it  is  inevitable  that  widespread 
temperate  drinking  among  the  well-to-do  and 


164    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  KACE 

capitalistic  class  is  largely  responsible  for  the 
anti-social  and  at  least  unsocial  and  sometimes 
criminal  practices  laid  at  the  door  of  predatory 
wealth.  It  has  played  its  part  in  the  oppressive 
attitude  which  capital  has  so  often  taken  toward 
labour,  and  in  the  cruelty  it  has  sometimes 
visited  upon  child  labour.  On  the  other  hand, 
widespread  drinking  in  the  ranks  of  the  toilers 
is  largely  responsible  for  the  unreasoning,  and 
sometimes  violent  and  destructive,  attitude 
labour  has  at  times  taken  toward  capital.  To 
the  permeating,  subtly  degenerating  influence  of 
drink  on  both  sides  is  primarily  due  the  selfish- 
ness which  has  so  largely  interfered  with  the 
just  settlement  of  the  differences  between  em- 
ployer and  employee,  preventing  that  mutual 
confidence  and  spirit  of  mutual  concession 
necessary  to  close  cooperation  or,  in  other 
words,  to  modern  organized  society.  Just  as 
effect  must  follow  cause,  drink  is  a  factor  of 
importance  in  many  labour  troubles  and  other 
economic  and  social  disturbances.  It  is,  beyond 
doubt,  a  great  impediment  to  the  solution  of  the 
grave  problems  that  industrialism  has  brought 
to  all  the  great  nations. 

Alcoholic  degeneracy  prepares  the  way  for 
immorality.  As  pointed  out  previously,  the  ef- 
fect of  alcohol  is  to  deaden  self-control  and  the 
moral  sense  and  to  paralyze  the  restraints 
which  should  be  kept  upon  the  lower  animal 
nature  and  the  passions.  The  inevitable  result 
is  immorality  with  its  train  of  disease  and 
death.    The  lapse  from  virtue  is  a  terrific  shock 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  165 

to  the  character  in  man  or  woman.  Add  to 
this  the  direct  undermining  effect  upon  the 
moral  sense  of  the  nation  this  shock  produces, 
as  it  strikes  millions  of  citizens,  and  it  is  clear 
how  deadly  is  the  wound  inflicted  by  alcohol 
upon  the  morals  and  good  character  of  the  na- 
tion. 

Alcohol  has  the  same  deadly  effect  on  the 
spiritual  activities  as  upon  the  moral  sense. 
In  fact  the  spiritual  activities,  as  the  highest 
of  all,  weaken  and  disappear  first  under  the 
effect  of  alcohol.  There  is  no  initial  stimula- 
tion. Depression  sets  in  at  once.  The  effect  of 
widespread  drinking  upon  the  religious  life  of  a 
nation  is  appalling.  Drink  and  true  religion 
simply  cannot  go  together.  Millions  have  their 
relationship  to  God  lowered  by  drink  to  the  level 
of  hope  of  reward  and  fear  of  punishment, 
while  the  natural  attitude  should  be  that  of 
love  and  trust  of  a  child  toward  a  father. 
Other  millions  have  had  the  spiritual  world 
practically  blotted  out  of  their  reckoning  and 
consciousness.  No  one  can  measure  the  fun- 
damental loss  this  is  to  a  nation  as  a  whole. 
History  does  not  record  a  case  of  a  nation 
which  survived  long  after  debauchery  dissipated 
its  good  morals  and  banished  religion  from  the 
life  of  the  people. 

The  political  life  of  the  nation  suffers  similar 
dislocations.  In  autocratic  governments  the 
lowering  of  character  of  the  sovereign,  the  royal 
family,  and  the  aristocracy,  takes  away  from 
+hem  the  sense  of  responsibility,  the  altruistic 


166    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

motives  of  service  and  the  guidings  of  con- 
science ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  exalts  the  ego, 
the  selfish  motive  which  brings  abnse  of  power 
and  oppression  in  all  its  forms  upon  the  masses 
of  the  people. 

In  democracies  this  lowering  of  character 
and  ideals  in  the  electorate  throws  wide  the 
doors  to  political  corruption,  and  prepares  the 
way  for  political  power  to  pass  under  the  con- 
trol of  sinister,  predatory  interests  which  seek 
the  power  of  government  in  order  the  better  and 
with  less  restraint  to  mulct  and  oppress  the 
people. 

History  verifies  what  science  and  reasoning 
indicate  as  inevitable,  that  when  the  average 
standard  of  character  of  the  people  falls  below 
a  certain  minimum  level,  permanent,  honest, 
self-government  becomes  impossible.  Liquor 
and  liberty  cannot  live  together  in  the  same 
land.  It  is  vain  to  sacrifice  the  present  in  the 
hope  of  establishing  a  world  safe  for  democracy 
if  we  permit  the  liquor  traffic  to  continue  ram- 
pant upon  the  earth.  When  drink  long  de- 
bauches humanity,  free  institutions  of  necessity 
must  wither  and  perish.  To  a  limited  extent 
we  can  see  this  verification  in  the  past  history 
of  the  big  cities  of  America,  and  of  other  democ- 
racies, where  hundreds  of  thousands  of  voters 
place  low  estimates  upon  the  franchise  and 
where  wholesale,  corrupt  practices  are  pro- 
verbial. The  most  powerful  of  all  the  sinister 
interests  which  capitalize  politics  after  political 
honour  droops  is  the  liquor  traffic.     It  is  the 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  167 

principal  cause  of  political  depravity.  The 
liquor  producers,  rick  brewers  and  distillers, 
influence  government  officials  and  the  upper 
circles  of  society,  and  contribute  heavily  to  the 
funds  with  which  the  political  campaigns  of  all 
parties  are  financed ;  while  the  wholesalers  and 
retailers  influence  the  commercial  world,  the 
trades  unions — as  they  are  called  abroad — and 
labour  unions,  and  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
voters,  especially  in  the  city  slums.  The  first 
principle  in  liquor's  code  is  to  dominate  politics 
and  government.  This  is  the  prerequisite  of 
liquor's  continued  existence.  Government  itself 
exists  to  promote  the  highest  welfare  of  the 
people  governed, — their  prosperity,  happiness, 
health  and  morals.  Liquor  is  the  deadliest  foe  to 
this  highest  welfare.  It  is  a  primary  duty  of 
government,  therefore,  to  fight  and  destroy  the 
liquor  traffic ;  and,  manifestly,  the  only  way  for 
the  liquor  traffic  to  escape  the  wrath  of  govern- 
ment, when  the  truth  about  alcohol  becomes 
known,  is  to  control  the  government  and  par- 
alyze its  true  function.  Speaking  in  general 
terms  and  making  exception  for  towns  and 
small  cities,  rural  communities  and  states,  it 
can  be  said,  generally,  that  politicians,  political 
parties,  and  the  governments  of  the  civilized 
world  up  to  the  time  of  the  great  war,  in  what 
relates  to  liquor  policies,  had  been  under  the 
control  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Up  to  that  time 
the  liquor  traffic  had  held,  literally,  the  power 
of  political  life  and  death.  This  sinister 
power's  hand  is  seen  also  in  the  administration 


168    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

and  execution  of  laws.  The  liquor  traffic  is  in- 
herently an  outlaw  and  works  politically  al- 
ways for  lax  enforcement  of  law. 

It  is  evident  that  drink  is  the  great  disrupter 
of  the  standards  and  activities  which  develop  a 
nation, — education,  business  ethics,  morals,  re- 
ligion, politics  and  government.  It  is  particu- 
larly destructive  to  these  functions  under  free 
institutions.  Such  activities  truly  constitute 
the  exercise  of  a  nation,  considered  as  a  social 
organism.  We  have  already  noted  the  liquor 
traffic's  effect  upon  economic  activities,  the  pro- 
ducing, distributing,  regulating  system  which 
determines  in  large  measure  a  nation's  pros- 
perity, health  and  vitality,  and  which  constitute 
the  nutrition  of  a  nation,  considered  as  an  or- 
ganism. Where  both  nutrition  and  exercise 
are  sorely  disturbed  in  a  nation  or  any  other 
organism  we  must  expect  serious  disorder  to 
appear,  even  to  an  extent  threatening  the  very 
life  of  the  nation  or  the  organism. 

While  the  life  of  a  nation  appears  at  a  given 
time  to  be  static,  it  is  really  undergoing  a  con- 
stant process  of  advance  or  retrogression 
through  the  germ  plasm  of  its  people.  It  has 
been  previously  shown  that  alcohol,  a  specific 
cause  of  degeneracy,  impairs  the  germ  plasm, 
enfeebles  and  decimates  the  people,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  eats  away  those  social  virtues  and 
capacities  which  make  for  the  life  of,  and  pro- 
motes those  anti-social  characteristics  which 
make  for  the  death  of,  a  nation.  It  is  inevitable 
that  when  a  nation  becomes  generally  debauched 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  169 

by  drink  its  families  breed  degenerates  and  tend 
to  become  extinct.  When  the  drinking  is  tem- 
perate but  general  throughout  a  nation  the 
process  of  decline  is  slower,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  inevitable. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  sober  community 
the  care  and  protection  of  homes  will  be 
normal.  The  educational  advantages  and 
general  environment  of  sober  communities 
will  be  normal  and  highly  efficient.  As  a  con- 
sequence we  must  infer  that  the  general  de- 
velopment will  be  normal,  and  that  with  natural 
conditions,  each  succeeding  generation  will  tend 
to  advance  higher  along  the  line  of  evolution 
of  the  species.  Thus,  assuming  that  the  phys- 
ical conditions  for  nutrition  are  normal  and 
adequate,  a  sober  family  and  a  sober  nation  will 
continue  indefinitely  to  have  a  natural  increase, 
and  to  rise  higher  in  civilization. 

Other  factors,  of  course,  influence  the  rise 
and  fall  of  nations,  but  no  other  factor  is  com- 
parable to  drink  because  of  its  determining  in- 
fluence upon  the  function  of  reproduction. 
Physiologically  speaking,  a  sober  nation  should 
never  die;  but  a  drinking  nation  is  doomed  to 
decay  and  premature  death.  Besides  disrupt- 
ing the  process  of  reproduction,  drinking,  in 
brutalizing  the  nature  of  its  citizens,  weakens 
the  social  bond  which  holds  the  population  to- 
gether, and  thereby  hastens  national  disin- 
tegration. The  historians  and  philosophers  of 
an  elder  day,  not  knowing  the  deadly  nature 
of  alcohol,  have  often  been  at  a  loss  to  de- 


170    ALCOHOL  ANt>  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

termine  the  cause  of  the  decline  of  nations 
and  empires.  They  have  noted,  however, 
that  dissipation,  particularly  marked  in  the 
great  cities,  has  usually  preceded  and  ac- 
companied the  downfall  of  great  nations.  We 
know  that  drink  is  the  chief  cause  and  always 
the  attendant  of  widespread  dissipation.  The 
historians  have  noted  also  the  corroding  effect 
of  wealth.  We  know  that  wealth  almost  in- 
variably has  fostered  drink.  Modern  science, 
in  establishing  the  deadly  nature  of  alcohol,  has 
thrown  a  new  light  upon  the  history  of  the 
world. 

It  is  the  higher  brain  structure,  the  more 
complex  nerve  structure  of  the  upper  brain, 
with  its  enormous  energy-generating,  convey- 
ing and  converting  capacity  which  constitutes 
the  physical  basis  of  reason,  the  distinguishing 
attribute  between  man  and  the  brute.  It  is  this 
faculty  which  has  enabled  man  to  survive  in  all 
his  struggles  with  plant  and  beast  life.  It  is  a 
higher  average  development  of  this  central 
nervous  system  which  enables  one  social  group 
to  survive  in  its  struggles  with  other  social 
groups.  Alcohol,  by  its  attacks  upon  the  cen- 
tral nervous  system,  lowers  the  average  energy- 
producing,  conveying  and  converting  capacity 
of  this  high  brain-center  in  a  nation's  citizens, 
and  dooms  a  drinking  nation  competing  with  a 
sober  nation  of  equal  development.  We  recog- 
nize here  the  operation  of  a  universal  law  of 
physical  evolution  from  which  there  is  no 
escape.     The  moment  scientific  research  estab- 


ALCOHOL  AND  NATIONS  171 

lished  alcohol's  affinity  for  nerve  tissue  and  its 
terrible  effects  upon  the  brain  and  central  nerv- 
ous system,  that  moment  debate  ended.  The 
duty  of  every  government  and  of  every  good 
citizen  became  established  and  imperative;  for 
instantly  it  became  evident  that  a  nation  must 
become  sober  or  wither;  that  the  human  race 
must  rid  itself  of  the  beverage  use  of  alcohol  or 
be  forever  toppling  back  from  affluent  political 
integrations  capable  of  general  saturation  with 
drink,  into  disorganized  and  broken  social  frag- 
ments in  which  poverty  and  hard  conditions  of 
life  will  prevent  such  alcoholization  as  to  pro- 
duce extinction. 


VII 

ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS 

FACTOKS  that  are  fundamental  in  the 
life  history  of  the  individual  and  of  a 
nation  must  manifestly  be  fundamental 
in  the  progress  of  civilization  and  the  general 
welfare  of  the  human  race. 

While  civilization  ordinarily  assumes  the  con- 
temporary existence  and  intercommunication 
of  more  than  one  nation,  nevertheless,  especially 
in  the  earlier  days  of  difficult  transportation, 
as  a  rule  one  nation  developed  and  dominated 
a  civilization,  as  in  the  civilizations  of  Egypt, 
of  Mesopotamia,  of  China,  of  Greece,  of  Kome, 
of  the  Aztecs  and  Incas,  and  of  the  ancient 
Pueblos. 

Naturally  as  man  has  addedly  dominated  his 
environment,  increased  in  numbers,  extended 
the  range  of  his  habitat  and  improved  his 
methods  of  transportation,  civilization  and  the 
progress  of  the  race  have  come  to  depend  less 
upon  any  one  nation  and  more  upon  a  com- 
munity of  many  nations.  The  entity  of  the 
human  race,  for  the  same  reason,  is  growing  in- 
creasingly like  a  single  living  organism,  and 
must  be  found  more  and  more  subject  to  those 
same  fundamental  and  elemental  factors  that 
determine  the  development  of  all  organisms. 

172 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS       173 

The  failure  of  historians  to  realize  this  grow- 
ing analogy  of  the  human  race  to  an  organism 
has  been  the  chief  cause  of  their  failure  to  estab- 
lish any  adequate  philosophy  of  history,  or  fully 
to  interpret  the  mysteries  involved  in  the  rise 
and  the  fall  of  civilizations.  No  historian  seems 
to  have  endeavoured  to  establish  scientific- 
ally the  biological  causes  of  the  growth  and 
decline  even  of  individual  nations. 

Practically  all  historians  have  noted,  how- 
ever, as  pointed  out  before,  that  dissipation, 
debauchery,  and  luxury  attended  the  decline  of 
nations  and  downfall  of  civilizations,  but  they 
have  failed  invariably  to  perceive  the  deep  re- 
lationship of  cause  and  effect.  The  strange 
march  of  degeneracy  has  been  seen  so  uniformly 
to  overtake  the  nations  of  the  past  that  his- 
torians simply  concluded  that  a  nation  only 
rises  to  fall,  is  only  born  to  die.  To-day  a  his- 
torian versed  in  the  laws  of  biology  and  soci- 
ology, and  possessed  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  about  alcohol  as  now  definitely  estab- 
lished, can  readily  convince  the  world  that  the 
supreme  tragedy  of  human  existence  has  not 
been  due  to  the  antagonism  of  nature's  cold  or 
heat  nor  of  wild  beasts,  jungles,  storms,  vol- 
cano, earthquake,  war,  or  pestilence;  but  over- 
whelmingly more  than  all  these  combined,  to 
alcohol  and  its  certain  fruit,  degeneracy. 

Alcohol  and  the  Physical  Basis  of  Civilization. 
Nutrition  being  the  first  requisite  of  life- 
domination  over  the  forces  of  nature,  it  is  the 


174    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

first  step  in  building  any  civilization.  The 
physical  conditions,  the  extremes  of  heat  and 
cold,  of  dryness  and  moisture,  of  excessive 
vegetation  and  bleakness,  place  natural  limita- 
tions upon  the  zone  of  advanced  civilization. 

These  limitations  are  not  rigid,  particularly 
at  the  present  day.  With  the  development  of 
transportation  and  nutrition,  the  protection  of 
life,  and  the  availability  of  comforts  and  con- 
veniences as  well  as  of  necessities,  the  habitat  of 
civilization  is  advancing  into  the  sub-tropic  and 
sub-polar  regions  and  even  into  the  tropics  them- 
selves. Though  the  highly  civilized  white  man 
seems  to  be  at  a  disadvantage  beyond  the  tem- 
perate zone,  this  disadvantage  is  more  apparent 
than  real.  It  has  been  my  observation  that  the 
white  man,  drawn  to  these  border  lands  of 
civilization  by  the  advantages  of  business,  has 
always  taken  drink  with  him  for  consolation,  as 
if  it  were  a  precious,  indispensable  possession, 
and  that  he  has  generally  extended  his  drinking 
more  there  than  elsewhere,  thus  undermining 
his  vitality  and  strength.  In  the  light  of  what 
we  know  about  alcohol,  it  is  evident  that  most 
of  the  liver  troubles  and  other  complaints  which 
wear  out  the  white  man  in  the  tropics  and  sub- 
tropics  are  due  more  to  drink  than  to  the 
climate.1  The  same  reduced  resistance  to  ex- 
posure is  entailed  from  the  same  cause  by  the 


1  Horsley  &  Sturge,  Parker,  J.  Ronald  Martin,  William 
Ferguson,  Borden  Dickson,  Renne,  Jackson,  Castellaine, 
Chalmers,  Duncan,  Rogers,  Senator  &  Kaanmier. 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        175 

white  men  who  venture  into  the  regions  of  ex- 
treme cold.1 

It  is  evident  now  that  throughout  the  world's 
history  and  to-day,  drink  has  always  been  a 
serious  factor  in  limiting  the  bounds  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  extension  of  the  habitat  of  civiliza- 
tion and  the  development  of  civilization  within 
that  habitat  have  required  from  man  that  con- 
trol of  nature  and  nature's  forces  which  can 
only  come  through  the  uses  of  mechanical  forces 
and  powers  developed  by  implements  and  tools. 
Knowing  as  we  do  the  enfeebling  effect  of  alco- 
hol upon  the  higher  intellectual  faculties  re- 
quired by  invention  and  discovery,  knowing  its 
similar  effect  upon  the  elements  of  character 
involved  in  cooperation,  we  can  hardly  con- 
ceive, much  less  realize,  what  curtailments 
drink  has  wrought  in  the  realm  of  mechanics, 
hindering  the  extension  of  human  control  of 
natural  forces.  We  know  that  many  important 
devices  and  forces  have  been  lost  and  many  in- 
ventions forgotten  in  the  degeneracy  and  decline 
of  past  civilizations,  some  of  which  lost  achieve- 
ments have  not  yet  been  rediscovered. 

Invention  and  mechanics  should  advance  in 
geometrical  progression,  each  acquisition  serv- 
ing as  a  base  for  further  conquests.  Know- 
ing how  rapidly  the  mechanic  arts  have  de- 
veloped in  recent  decades,  considering  the  prog- 
ress already  made  under  serious  social  and 
physical  handicap,  one  can  imagine  what  would 

1T.  Lander  Brunton,  Horsley  &  Sturge,  Sir  J.  Ross, 
John  T.  Rae,  Dr.  Nansen. 


176    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

long  since  have  been  the  position  of  man  in 
nature  had  the  human  race  been  able  to  com- 
mand its  full  intellectual  powers.  In  this  way- 
drink  has  delayed  even  so  fundamental  a  matter 
as  the  adequate  feeding  of  the  nations.  By  its 
disintegrating  effects  upon  the  constructive 
imagination  of  the  race  it  has  barred  humanity 
from  the  full  conquest  of  nature  and  the  ample 
supplies  of  the  necessities  of  life  which  would 
have  resulted  from  such  a  conquest,  thus  pre- 
venting even  physical  foundations  for  general 
and  enduring  civilizations. 

This  curtailing  influence  of  drink  upon  civili- 
zation is  seen  not  only  in  restricting  the  habitat 
or  zones  of  civilization,  but  also  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  civilization  within  that  habitat,  blight- 
ing worst  the  lands  that  are  fairest.  Where 
nature  is  most  favourable  otherwise  for  building 
high  civilization  there,  ofttimes,  the  vine  flour- 
ishes best,  and  drinking  has  been  more  general. 
In  less  favoured  lands,  where  the  grape  is  not 
so  abundant  and  drinking  not  so  general  but 
more  of  a  luxury,  inducing  excesses  on  festival 
occasions,  these  excesses  are  more  liable  to  be 
noted  by  the  historian  and  observer,  though  they 
are  far  less  destructive,  coming  as  they  do  only 
at  intervals,  than  the  more  temperate,  constant 
drinking  in  the  lands  of  the  vine.  The  general 
result,  through  succeeding  generations,  has  been 
the  more  rapid  decline  of  civilizations  in 
favoured  lands  and  climes. 

The  appearance  in  commerce  of  concentrated 
distilled  alcoholic  beverages  a  few  generations 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        177 

ago  has  brought  grain  into  general  use  for  the 
making  of  liquors,  and  has  vastly  increased  the 
total  amount  of  alcohol  consumed.  Conse- 
quently modern  civilizations  will  decline  more 
rapidly  than  those  of  old  if  its  inroads  are  not 
stayed.  Furthermore,  the  profits  from  liquor 
in  concentrated  form  are  so  great,  the  trans- 
portation so  easy,  and  the  markets  so  readily 
created,  that  this  traffic,  especially  in  the  form 
of  rum, — the  first  to  take  advantage  of  improved 
methods  of  transportation  and  the  modern 
facilities  of  commerce — is  sending  cargoes  of 
poison  into  all  the  corners  of  the  earth.  So  the 
very  factors  which  serve  for  the  building  up  of 
civilization  are  turned  into  instruments  of 
destruction.  This  is  most  marked  in  the  case 
of  backward  peoples,  whose  more  primitive 
civilizations  literally  vanish  before  the  advanc- 
ing lines  of  higher  civilizations  armed  with  rum. 

The  same  general  effect  is  seen  in  rich  com- 
munities and  great  cities.  Through  the  beverage 
traffic  in  alcohol  instruments  of  progress  are 
prostituted  to  the  creating  of  a  degeneracy  and 
decay,  unknown  in  like  degree  to  poorer  com- 
munities and  scattered  rural  populations. 

Serious  effects  are  manifested  upon  what 
should  be  the  naturally  selective  breeding  of  the 
race  which  would  otherwise  produce  an  ever- 
advancing  civilization.  The  most  promising 
families,  those  which  get  up  in  the  world,  are 
so  frequently  the  conspicuous  victims  of  drink, 
so  that  the  best  specimens,  the  most  virile  fam- 
ilies, tend  to  degenerate  and  become  extinct. 


178    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EAOE 

A  moderatley  humble  lineage  seems  to  be  far 
safer  than  a  proud  one,  when  alcohol  is  at  large. 

And,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  drink, 
in  lowering  the  vitality  and  resistance  of  man, 
fills  the  world  with  disease  and  premature 
death,  laying  upon  society  heavy  burdens  of 
crime,  pauperism  and  insanity  and  interfering 
with  those  forces  which  uplift  and  advance 
civilization. 

From  whatever  angle  we  study  man's  rela- 
tions to  nature,  we  discover  that  drink  has  both 
hindered  and  perverted  all  of  those  necessary 
agencies  of  progress  by  which  a  civilization  is 
built,  and  by  the  sound  functioning  of  which 
civilization  endures. 

Alcohol  and  the  Spiritual  Basis  of  Civilization. 

As  the  foundation  of  civilization  lies  in  the 
relationship  of  man  to  nature,  so  the  structure 
of  civilization  is  built  on  the  general  relation- 
ship of  men  to  their  fellows.  As  drink  under- 
mines the  foundation,  so  it  both  hinders  and  dis- 
integrates the  structure. 

Justice  between  men  and  nations  is  the  first 
requisite  for  that  harmony  and  cooperation 
necessary  to  the  building  and  sustaining  of  an 
enduring  civilization.  It  is  fundamental  both 
to  the  adequate  production  and  distribution  of 
nutriment,  and  to  the  exercise  of  those  faculties 
of  mind  and  heart  which  keep  a  civilization 
spiritually  renewed.  Through  good  govern- 
ment alone  can  such  justice  be  administered, 
and  such  international  ideals  be  maintained, 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        179 

but  the  foundation  of  good  government  is  a  high 
standard  of  character  both  in  the  governing  and 
the  governed.  In  autocracies  and  groups  of 
autocracies  the  enforcement  of  justice  demands 
especially  high  standards  in  the  rulers;  in 
democracies  and  groups  of  democracies  it  must 
inhere  in  the  people  who  choose  the  rulers.  We 
have  noted  how  alcohol  lowers  the  average  of 
character,  disintegrating  the  cell-machinery  of 
the  high  faculties,  such  as  the  sense  of  right  and 
justice,  the  passion  for  leaving  the  dominant 
reactions  of  life  to  be  determined  by  that  in- 
ferior part  of  the  brain  which  man  has  in  com- 
mon with  the  brute  and  in  which  self-interest 
rules  without  the  tempering  overlordship  of 
love,  mercy,  and  self-sacrifice. 

In  the  long  centuries  of  the  world's  ignorance 
as  to  the  nature  of  alcohol,  with  the  rulers  al- 
most always  addicted  to  drink  in  some  form, 
often  to  .an  extreme  degree,  and  transmitting 
their  lowered  vitality  through  heredity  to  their 
successors  in  power,  the  accumulated  tyranny, 
oppression,  cruelty,  and  misrule  caused  by  alco- 
hol transcends  the  imagination. 

In  a  democracy,  when  drink  becomes  general 
among  the  people,  patriotism  necessarily  de- 
clines, the  electorate  becomes  venal;  political 
control  falls  into  the  hands  of  selfish  interests 
whose  object  in  controlling  government  is  for 
the  purpose  of  preying  upon  the  people  and 
their  patrimony  and  enriching  themselves  at 
the  expense  of  society.  It  is  natural  and  in- 
evitable that  when  drink  becomes  general  and 


180    ALCOHOL  A2TO  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

long  continued  among  a  group  of  free  peoples 
the  average  standard  of  character  will  fall  be- 
low the  level  necessary  for  honest  elections. 
Corruption  will  become  common.  In  time,  lib- 
erty itself  will  perish,  justice  will  fail  and  a 
blight  fall  upon  the  civilization.  In  the  last 
analysis  drink  has  been  the  primary  cause  of 
the  repeated  disintegrations  of  free  institutions 
in  human  history.  Drink  is  inherently  destruc- 
tive of  individual  self-control,  the  prerequisite 
to  successful  self-government.  Any  hope  of 
building  an  enduring,  free  civilization  with  the 
beverage  alcohol  traffic  as  one  of  its  elements 
must  be  vain. 

The  natural  and  just  conception  of  civilized 
government  is  that  the  very  object  of  its  ex- 
istence is  to  promote  the  highest  permanent 
welfare  of  all  the  people  governed.  As  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  nature  of  alcohol  spreads  men 
realize  that  this  object  cannot  be  attained  with 
liquor  in  the  land,  and  that  the  first  duty  of 
such  a  government  is  to  destroy  the  liquor 
traffic.  Consequently  the  liquor  traffic,  im- 
pelled by  the  dictates  of  self-preservation, 
must  actually  control  government  at  such  a 
juncture  or  perish.  That  is  why  the  hand  of 
this  sinister  traffic  is  seen  more  and  more  in 
politics,  as  pointed  out  in  a  previous  chapter. 
This  modern  extension  of  the  political  activities 
of  the  liquor  traffic  is  so  far  advanced  already 
that  the  future,  for  some  of  the  units  of  modern 
civilization,  is  a  grave  problem.  Constructive 
moral  forces  are  now  organizing  in  wide-flung 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS         181 

efforts  to  break  the  strangle-hold  of  liquor  upon 
these  existing  governments.  Destiny  is  wait- 
ing upon  the  success  of  their  efforts.  If  liquor 
wins,  good  government  will  ultimately  pass  and 
justice  disappear.  When  justice  goes,  not  only 
the  nations,  but  the  civilization  they  have  made, 
will  topple  to  their  fall.  Just  as  surely  as  cause 
and  effect  continue,  drink,  if  it  continue,  will 
repeat  what  it  has  accomplished  in  the  past — the 
overthrow  of  the  best  systems,  built  up  from  the 
noblest  philosophy.  All  democratic  systems 
must  fail  when  the  peoples  which  compose  them 
degenerate. 

The  development  of  an  advanced  civilization 
not  only  requires  justice  between  men  and  na- 
tions, but  that  peace  between  men  and  nations, 
of  which  justice,  tempered  with  love  and  mercy, 
is  the  corner-stone.  Manifestly,  no  civilization 
can  achieve  its  proper  ends  while  a  large  part 
of  the  substance  and  vitality  of  the  peoples 
which  create  it  is  destroyed  by  disorders  and 
contentions  within  and  by  wars  from  without. 
Some  writers  have  advanced  the  theory  that 
war  is  necessary  to  the  advancement  of  civiliza- 
tion. So  it  is  as  a  purely  scavenger  process, 
analogous  to  the  war  going  on  in  the  human 
system  between  the  white  blood  cells  and  anti- 
bodies and  intruding  enemies.  The  necessary 
basis  for  war  is  found  in  degeneracy.  Keinove 
degeneracy  and  there  would  be  no  more  neces- 
sity for  wars  within  the  human  species  than 
within  any  other  species  in  nature.  Put  an  end 
to  degeneracy,  which  is  only  another  way  of 


182    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

saying  put  an  end  to  drink,  and  wars  will  cease 
from  the  earth. 

The  degenerating  effects  of  alcohol,  in  throw- 
ing the  dominant  activities  of  men's  minds  on 
the  base  of  the  brain  where  the  more  primitive 
brutal  instincts  hold  forth,  has  the  same  effect 
in  undermining  peace  between  nations  that  it 
has  in  undermining  peace  between  men.  The 
relationship  of  cause  and  effect  is  precisely  the 
same.  Drink  is  so  manifestly  a  social  irritant, 
so  notoriously  the  mother  of  the  mob  spirit,  of 
violence,  rioting,  incendiarism,  anarchy,  wanton 
destruction,  that  in  any  great  catastrophe  the 
first  act  of  intelligent  governments,  as  pointed 
out  before,  is  to  close  the  saloons  and  shut  off 
drink. 

As  transportation  develops,  and  nations  are 
brought  close  to  each  other,  it  is  of  fundamental 
importance  to  the  peace  of  the  world  and  to  the 
progress  of  civilization  that  the  "  consciousness 
of  kind  "  between  men  should  broaden.  If  hu- 
man evolution  could  follow  its  normal  course, 
we  could  see  a  time  approach  when  all  men 
everywhere  would  realize  fundamentally  that 
they  belong  to  the  same  species,  that  they  are 
brothers,  children  of  the  same  Father,  treading 
the  same  path  of  life.  But  while  a  civilization 
is  debauched  by  liquor,  fear,  hate,  suspicion  and 
all  those  baser  characteristics  which  constitute 
the  reactions  of  the  lower  brain  cannot  be  elimi- 
nated from  international  relations.  Closer 
proximity,  under  these  conditions,  instead  of 
developing  neighbourliness,  only  engenders  fur- 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        183 

ther  distrust  and  augments  the  menace  from 
other  nations.  It  is  physiologically  funda- 
mental that  while  a  civilization  is  saturated 
with  drink  it  will  of  necessity  spend  itself  from 
time  to  time  in  recurring  orgies  and  cataclysms 
of  interdestruction.  The  attitude  of  one  nation 
toward  another  will  inevitably  approach  that 
of  one  wild  beast  toward  another  of  a  different 
species.  Each  will  think  the  other  is  lying  in 
wait  for  its  life,  that  both  cannot  live  in  the 
same  world,  and  that  one  must  destroy  the  other 
or  be  destroyed. 

With  a  world  steeped  in  liquor,  with  the  top 
parts  of  men's  brains  numbed  and  partly 
atrophied  and  the  principal  activities  thrown 
upon  the  base  of  the  brain,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  bridging  of  space  and  the  improving  of 
transportation  should  have  brought,  as  it  did,  a 
swift  growth  of  armaments  and  militarism,  and 
the  hurrying  on  of  economic  rivalries  and  trade 
wars  until  the  world  became  a  collection  of  vast 
military  camps.  When  war  finally  broke  it  was 
almost  inevitable  that  it  should  spread  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  It  was  inevitable  that  a 
thoroughly  alcoholized  nation  should  turn  all 
the  forces  of  nature  to  the  purposes  of  destruc- 
tion, that  the  philosophy  of  might  should  assert 
itself ;  and  that  the  Hun  should  reappear  on  the 
earth  with  the  policies  of  ruthlessness  and 
wanton  destruction  characteristic  of  past  bar- 
baric ages. 

Temporary  order  can  be  established  in  a 
drinking  mob  by  a  force  acting  on  its  brute- 


184    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EAOE 

instinct  of  self-preservation,  but  permanent 
order  cannot  prevail  in  society  until  drink  is 
cut  off  and  men  become  sober.  Suck  a  peace  of 
the  brute  may  be  reestablished  ere  long  in  the 
bleeding  world,  but  it  is  vain  to  hope  for  abid- 
ing peace  until  the  world  becomes  abidingly  free 
from  alcoholization. 

Peaceful  commerce  between  nations,  in 
mutual  service  and  mutual  confidence,  is  neces- 
sary to  any  world-wide  civilization.  The  high- 
est civilization  will  only  be  attained  when  all 
nations  and  races  cooperate  in  complemental 
and  supplemental  activities  directed  toward  the 
highest  common  welfare  of  the  whole  race ;  and 
this  highest  welfare  consists  in  the  maximum 
advance  of  the  race  along  the  line  indicated  by 
its  physiological  evolution,  the  building  up  of 
those  attributes  and  capacities  which  operate  in 
the  growing  part  of  the  race's  intellectual 
machinery — the  top  brain.  This  ideal  condi- 
tion would  involve  the  cooperation  of  the 
whole  world  in  a  systematic  elimination  of  the 
agencies  of  degeneracy  and  destruction,  and  a 
systematic  development  of  the  agencies  of  uplift 
and  construction. 

Science,  by  the  bridling  of  nature's  forces,  has 
practically  removed  time  and  space,  the  phys- 
ical barriers,  and  has  developed  adequate 
agencies  for  universal  intercommunication  and 
cooperation.  The  barriers  which  remain  are 
moral  and  spiritual,  barriers  of  prejudice,  self- 
ishness, fear,  hate,  and  distrust.  Nations 
largely  steeped  in  alcohol  are  and  can  be  in  no 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        185 

fit  physical  or  spiritual  condition  to  eliminate 
these  barriers.  The  only  way  to  remove  them 
is  to  remove  everything  which  helps  to  create 
and  maintain  them,  and  alcohol  is  one  of  the 
chief  factors.  Confidence,  good- will,  and  love — 
the  attributes  which  enable  the  practice  of  the 
Golden  Eule  and  which  constitute  "  the  fruits 
of  the  spirit  " — can  only  attend  upon  high  moral 
and  spiritual  development.  They  are,  in  fact, 
the  latest  and  highest  attainments  in  human 
evolution  and,  as  we  have  already  disclosed,  are 
the  first  to  have  the  brain  cells  in  which  they 
operate  withered  by  repeated  potations  of  alco- 
hol. It  is  clear  that  while  drink  is  at  large, 
complete  brotherly  cooperation  of  the  nations  is 
impossible. 

Every  failure  of  the  spirit  of  the  Golden  Eule 
between  nations  means  a  corresponding  loss  of 
harmony,  a  restriction  of  cooperation,  and  a 
loss  of  efficiency,  with  a  commensurate  decline 
in  civilization.  It  is  scientifically  impossible 
for  an  individual,  a  state,  or  a  nation  growingly 
to  apprehend  and  follow  the  teachings  of  Christ, 
and  persist  in  drinking  alcoholic  beverages  regu- 
larly, even  though  temperately.  The  general 
decline  of  religion  among  a  people  as  the  drink- 
ing of  alcohol  advances  is  marked.  If  this  drug 
be  left  a  free  hand  the  Christian  nations  will 
destroy  the  un-Christianized  nations  with  rum 
before  they  can  convert  them  to  Christ.  Chris- 
tian civilization  and  drink  cannot  abide  to- 
gether. A  prime  prerequisite  to  a  reign  of 
brotherly  love  between  the  nations,  to.  the  re- 


186    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  BACE 

moval  of  the  barriers  of  hate  and  the  develop- 
ment of  full  cooperation, — just  as  it  is  an  es- 
sential to  the  establishing  of  enduring  peace 
and  liberty — is  the  suppression  of  the  beverage 
alcohol  traffic. 

Drink  has  played  and  is  now  playing  a  major 
r61e  in  the  drama  of  civilization.  It  limits 
man's  relationship  to  nature,  his  relationship 
to  his  fellow  man,  and  his  relationship  to  his 
Maker.  By  its  effects  upon  the  human  brain 
and  the  consequent  lowering  of  average  char- 
acter, drink  upsets  the  whole  scheme  of  civiliza- 
tion and  thwarts  the  spiritual  evolution  of  the 
race. 

It  has  lowered  the  powers  of  bodily  resistance 
to  physical  enemies.  It  has  limited  invention 
and  curtailed  the  development  of  tools  and  ap- 
pliances, thus  delaying  the  mastery  of  nature's 
forces  and  prolonging  the  period  of  insufficient 
production  and  distribution  of  nutriment,  cloth- 
ing, shelter,  and  the  other  needs  of  civilized 
man.  Its  heaviest  blight  has  been  upon  the 
fairest  lands  and  the  largest  cities,  the  naturally 
opportune  seats  for  the  highest  civilization.  It 
has  seized  every  improvement  of  commerce  and 
instrument  of  progress,  and  prostituted  them  to 
the  furthering  of  its  malevolent  purposes.  It 
has  made  its  deadliest  thrusts  at  the  heredity  of 
the  great,  the  noble,  and  the  kingly,  leveling 
humanity  morally  and  intellectually  to  a  race 
of  comparative  scrubs.  It  has  transformed 
rulers  and  leaders  into  tyrants  and  oppressors, 
liberty  into  license  and  patriotism  into  cor- 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS         187 

ruption.  It  lias  blighted  the  free  institutions 
of  the  past,  and  is  steadily  undermining  those 
of  the  present.  It  has  upset  natural  cordiality 
between  capital  and  labour,  between  employer 
and  employee,  and  has  augmented  the  indus- 
trial disorder  of  the  world.  Before  its  march, 
natural  justice  has  waned.  Myriads  of  men 
have  been  cheated  of  the  full  exercise  of  their 
physical  and  mental  faculties  and  many  denied 
nourishment  for  the  body,  the  two  primary 
factors  of  development  and  progress.  Under 
its  poisoning  effect,  disease  and  death  multiply 
everywhere.  Under  its  degenerating,  desocial- 
izing  influence  good  citizens  become  criminals 
by  the  thousands,  the  self-sustaining  become 
paupers,  and  anti-social  forces  are  let  loose 
throughout  society.  When  nations  become 
largely  saturated  with  it,  all  those  base  and 
selfish  motives  which  it  brings  to  the  fore  in 
an  individual  it  makes  dominant  in  nations, 
with  results  monstrously  horrible  because  of 
the  greatness  of  the  destructive  powers  then  un- 
chained. Civilization  must  reckon  with  this 
vitiating,  degenerating  drug,  for  however  fair 
the  fabric,  however  high  the  degree  of  human 
brotherliness  a  civilization  may  attain,  this 
drug  can  destroy  it  all.  A  thing  which  makes 
an  individual  man  anti-social  in  the  most  inti- 
mate and  tender  of  all  voluntary  relationships — 
that  of  wedded  love — is  a  root-curse  and  deadly 
menace  to  all  civilization. 

History,   as   well   as   science,   offers   proof. 
There  are  no  human  records  so  old  that  they 


188    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

do  not  speak  of  alcoholic  intoxication,  and  we 
find  it  practiced  in  practically  all  the  primitive 
tribes  to-day.  Some  diseases  of  the  body  can  be 
traced  far  back  in  history,  but  the  oldest  of 
these  is  youthful  compared  to  the  accumulated 
hereditary  effects  of  alcohol.  It  was  known 
and  used  in  the  time  of  Zoroaster,  over  six  thou- 
sand three  hundred  years  B.  c.  Its  operations 
are  discussed  in  Egyptian  records  reaching  back 
to  5400  B.  a,  in  Chinese  records  of  the  year  2207 
b.  a>  in  Hebrew  records  of  the  twelfth  century 
B.  cv  in  the  records  of  India  as  far  back  as  the 
Fire  Worshippers,  in  the  records  of  Greece  in 
the  ninth  century  b.  cv  and  in  the  records  of 
Borne  beyond  the  beginnings  of  Eoman  civiliza- 
tion.1 

Throughout  history  we  can  trace  the  primary 
influence  of  the  public  attitude  toward  alcohol 
on  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires.  Practically 
without  exception  we  find  the  rises  of  empires 
to  have  been  contemporaneous  with  abstemious- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  peoples  composing  them, 
and  usually  with  prohibition  as  the  law  of  the 
state.  Particularly  striking  are  the  rise  of 
Grecian  greatness  through  general  education  of 
the  people  and  strict  prohibition  of  alcohol  un- 
der the  laws  of  Lycurgus,  and  the  rise  of  Koine 
during  its  four  hundred  years  of  absolute  pro- 

1  Bible.  ShooKing— "  Chinese  Bible."  Laws  of  Manu— • 
"  Bible  of  India."  Rig  Veda.  Homer  (Iliad,  Odyssey), 
Plato  (Laws,  City  State),  Aristotle  (Politics),  Herodotus, 
Pliny,  Pliny  the  Elder,  Castel  de  Foulanges,  Dorchester, 
Legge. 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        189 

hibition.  In  no  case  has  an  empire  ever  been 
built  up  by  a  dissipated  people,  and  in  no  case 
where  general  dissipation  appeared  has  an  em- 
pire escaped  decline  and  downfall. 

I  do  not  contend  that  other  causes  of  de- 
generacy were  not  in  operation,  especially  the 
vice  diseases  with  their  ghastly  toll ;  but  we  now 
know  that  liquor  is  the  principal  inciter  to  the 
contraction  of  these  diseases  and  is  the  domi- 
nant cause  of  social  degeneracy.1 

In  a  general  way  great  cities,  the  centers  of 
civilizations,  have  supplied  in  their  dense  popu- 
lations,— in  the  wealth  of  their  upper  classes 
seeking  elation  and  in  the  misery  of  their  sub- 
merged classes  seeking  oblivion, — propitious 
soil  for  the  alcohol  habit.  But  the  less  favoured 
frugal  citizens  outside  could  not  afford  the 
wines  of  the  rich  and,  undegenerate  and  pos- 
sessed of  larger  freedom  and  initiative,  migrated 
to  new  lands,  carrying  the  racial  germ  plasm 
intact.  They  regularly  moved  to  lands  lying  in 
the  temperate  zone  to  the  westward,  and  saw 
new  empires  gradually  arise  and  repeat  the 
historic  cycles  of  their  predecessors.  Thus  the 
hardy,  rural  peoples,  of  little  culture  but  of 
sounder  physique  and  greater  initiative,  have 
been  moving  westward  ahead  of  the  spreading 
cults  of  dissipation.  They  have  preserved  the 
integrity  of  the  germ  plasm  of  the  species  down 

J  Dr.  Douglas  White,  Forel,  Haven  Emerson,  Mary 
Scharlieb,  Victor  Horsley,  F.  W.  Mott,  Saleeby.  Report 
of  Royal  Commission  on  Venereal  Diseases,  London, 
1916. 


190    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

the  ages  and,  in  the  physiological  sense,  have 
renewed  civilization  while  the  alcohol  parasite 
has  strewed  the  path  left  behind  with  the  ashes 
of  empire.  With  the  filling  up  of  America 
there  is  now  no  more  virgin  west. 

Furthermore,  the  mastery  of  nature  and  the 
annihilation  of  space  have  brought  the  human 
race  together  into  one  organism  anyhow.  The 
whole  world,  with  its  heterogeneous  civilizations 
in  various  stages  of  alcoholic  degeneracy,  has 
now  become  much  like  a  single  civilization  of 
the  earlier  centuries.  It  was  not  only  natural, 
but  almost  inevitable,  that  one  of  the  early  out- 
comes of  this  change  should  be  an  orgy  of  inter- 
destruction;  that  part  of  the  world  should 
challenge  the  rest  of  the  world  to  meet  it  upon 
the  battlefield  and  turn  into  channels  of  destruc- 
tion the  substance  of  the  race, — the  accumula- 
tions of  the  past,  mortgages  upon  the  future, 
and  much  of  the  manhood  and  vitality  of  the 
race.  To  free  the  future  from  such,  or  a  yet 
more  terrible,  cataclysmic  horror,  no  organized 
and  panoplied  mass  of  humanity  dare  be  left 
to  steep  its  gray  matter  in  alcohol  and  so  force 
its  social  reactions  to  be  largely  governed  by  the 
base  of  its  composite  brain.  Brain-stuff — brain- 
stuff  of  the  most  delicate  and  highly  developed 
order,  fit  for  the  uses  and  developments  of 
those  moral  and  spiritual  capacities  which  are 
the  only  hope  of  an  organized  world,  is  the 
most  precious  possession  and  the  most  enlarging 
need  of  the  whole  race.  Alcohol  is  its  destroyer. 
Whatever  the  unsocialized  eras  of  human  his- 


ALCOHOL  AND  CIVILIZATIONS        191 

tory  may  have  managed  to  endure  of  this 
drug's  ravages,  this  era  can  no  longer  endure 
them.  Speaking  in  terms  of  the  entire  human 
race,  antiquity  was  the  era  of  the  body.  The 
more  immediate  past  has  been  the  era  of  the 
mind.  We  enter  upon  the  era  of  the  soul  of 
humanity.  What  the  future  holds  in  store  of 
exquisite  developments  in  the  top  brain  of  man 
we  may  only  dimly  dream.  But  this  we  know : 
A  civilization  which  blights  its  top  brains  with 
alcohol  will  never  attain  them. 


VIII 
THE  ONLY  CUEE 

Alcohol's  Appeals  Reviewed. 

THE  previous  chapters,  setting  forth  the 
truth  respecting  alcohol  and  its  effects 
upon  individuals,  nations  and  civiliza- 
tions, furnish  abundant  information  for  a  cor- 
rect diagnosis  of  the  nature  of  the  disease. 
Alcohol  has  an  appeal  which  creates  the  initial 
demand.  It  has  degenerative  qualities  which 
increase  and  intensify  that  demand.  And  it 
has  strongly  commercialized  sources  of  supply. 
As  to  the  first,  we  have  noted  that  alcohol's 
quick  suspension  of  the  faculties  latest  in  evolu- 
tion, especially  those  of  inhibition,  causes  a  re- 
version toward  lower  types  and  a  rising  up  of 
the  suppressed  primitive  man  within,  attended 
by  a  feeling  of  expansion,  of  strength,  of  a 
fullness  of  life,  of  inspiration.  Also,  that  the 
effect  of  the  feeling  of  well-being  and  stimula- 
tion, thus  falsely  produced,  appeals  to  a  motive 
universal  in  mankind — the  motive  of  elation, 
one  particularly  powerful  with  the  young,  with 
the  rich,  with  the  upper  classes,  and  with  young 
nations  and  rising  races.  We  found,  too,  that 
the  subsequent  alcoholic  narcosis,  blurring  con- 

192 


THE  ONLY  CUKE  193 

science  and  judgment,  producing  temporary  for- 
getf ulness  of  troubles,  relief  from  physical,  men- 
tal and  spiritual  suffering,  and  a  feeling  of  rest 
and  oblivion,  appeals  to  a  motive  also  universal 
in  mankind — the  oblivion  motive,  especially 
powerful  among  the  lower  classes,  the  down- 
trodden, the  poor,  the  older  nations  and  decay- 
ing races.  As  to  the  second  item,  that  of  alco- 
hol's ability  to  increase  and  intensify  its  own 
demand,  we  have  shown  that  the  poisonous 
effect  of  this  drug,  as  of  other  habit-forming 
drugs,  is  such  that  each  successive  dose  must 
be  larger  than  the  previous  one  to  produce  the 
same  sense  of  elation  or  of  oblivion.  At  the 
same  time  the  appeal  of  alcohol  is  thus  en- 
larged, the  powers  of  inhibition  and  self-control 
in  the  user  decline  under  its  effects.  As  the 
craving  grows  and  the  power  of  resistance  de- 
clines, the  victim  tends  to  become  helpless  in 
the  grip  of  the  habit.  Of  course  the  power  of 
the  habit  varies  with  the  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment and  with  the  natural  resisting  powers  of 
the  individual,  but  all  who  drink  are  either  full 
slaves  or  fractional  slaves.  This  being  so,  any 
professed  cure  which  leaves  the  drug  accessible 
to  its  addicts  is  manifestly  a  fallacy.  Patho- 
logical conditions  produced  by  drink  in  the 
parent  are  intensified  in  the  offspring  and 
cause  the  second  generation  to  be  more  sus- 
ceptible and  less  resistant.  The  ultimate  end 
is  not  in  doubt.  The  disease  becomes  more  and 
more  difficult  with  the  lapse  of  time  and  tends 
to  become  incurable. 


194    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

These  things  are  as  true  of  society  as  of  in- 
dividuals. The  alcohol  appeal  to  society,  in  the 
absence  of  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  is  closely 
analogous  to  its  appeal  to  the  individual, — the 
elation  motive  in  the  feeling  of  sociability  and 
good  cheer,  commonly  invoked  in  hospitality,  in 
social  gatherings,  ceremonials,  and  propitious 
events;  and  the  oblivion  motive  seeking  relief 
from  social  ills,  forgetfulness  of  suffering, 
poverty,  squalor,  wretchedness,  discontent,  and 
political  and  social  wrongs.  As  in  the  appeal 
to  the  individual,  both  these  motives  are  uni- 
versal in  organized  society. 

The  effect  of  habit  and  heredity  and  of  the 
lapse  of  time  is  the  same  with  society  as  with 
individuals.  The  grip  of  the  habit  grows 
socially  stronger  with  the  lapse  of  time.  The 
disease  sinks  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  in- 
dustrial, social  and  the  political  life,  while  the 
powers  of  collective  resistance  dwindle.  The 
disease  tends  to  become  less  and  less  amenable 
to  treatment  and  finally  to  become  incurable 
save  by  an  impoverishing  social  cataclysm. 

With  its  double  appeal,  both  to  the  individual 
and  to  society,  and  with  general  ignorance  of 
the  truth  respecting  it,  alcohol  has  a  vogue  as 
wide  as  humanity. 

The  Alcohol  Supply. 

While  alcohol  can  be  produced  in  the  labora- 
tory by  many  processes  more  or  less  difficult 
and  expensive,  its  production  in  nature  through 
the  operations  of  a  fungus  parasite,  the  yeast 


THE  ONLY  CURB  195 

or  ferment  germ,  is  spontaneous  and  easily 
accessible.  This  fungus  is  found  practically 
everywhere,  and  is  ever  ready  for  its  scavenger 
operation,  that  of  feeding  upon  damaged  fruit, 
grain,  vegetables,  etc.,  and  excreting  its  toxin, 
alcohol.  The  manufacture  of  alcoholic  bever- 
ages, therefore,  in  one  form  or  another,  is 
naturally  among  the  very  earliest  achieve- 
ments of  practically  all  peoples,  even  the 
most  primitive.  The  manufacture  in  indus- 
trial and  commercial  nations  is  easily  devel- 
oped to  gigantic  proportions  at  a  cost  exceed- 
ingly low.  With  such  an  easy,  cheap  manu- 
facturing process  for  this  powerful,  habit-form- 
ing drug  which  makes  a  universal  appeal  to 
humanity,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  financial 
possibilities  of  its  exploitation.  Greed  is  so 
universal  and  in  many  cases  so  dominant  and  in- 
considerate that,  inevitably,  the  parasitic  alcohol 
traffic  tends  to  rise  everywhere,  at  all  times,  and 
to  continue  sucking  away  the  substance  and 
vitality  of  its  host  until  the  host  perishes.  The 
idea  of  regulating  such  a  parasite  is  ludicrous. 
The  parasite  itself  will  inevitably  control  the 
regulator  and  will  proceed  unchecked  until  the 
highly  organized  society  which  harbours  it  dis- 
integrates and  perishes.  All  history  bears  out 
this  conclusion. 

As  the  demand  and  the  possible,  unchecked 
supply  are  both  coextensive  with  humanity,  we 
must  therefore  recognize  that  this  social  para- 
site is  always  present  and  ready  to  become 
virulent  in  the  body  social,  just  as  are  some 


196    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  KACE 

disease  parasites  in  the  physical  body.  When 
inhibited  we  must  realize  that  it  is  always  ready 
to  resume  operations  the  moment  the  resistance 
of  the  host  relaxes.  It  is  also  clear  that  the 
alcohol  parasite  tends  to  spread  its  operations 
from  one  point  to  another  like  an  infectious  dis- 
ease that  does  not  stop  until  it  covers  the  whole 
system.  This  is  natural,  since  susceptibility  to 
its  attacks  is  inherent  in  the  individual  and  in 
society  alike.  We  further  know  that  society 
has  a  long  history  of  drinking  ancestors;  that 
mankind  has  a  bad  alcohol  heredity  increasing 
the  natural  susceptibility  and  the  difficulties  in 
the  pathway  of  successful  treatment.  Our  con- 
clusion is  simple  and  alarming.  The  world  is 
in  the  throes  of  a  deep-seated  social  disease. 
With  this  knowledge,  with  an  understanding  of 
the  nature  of  the  disease  and  the  characteristics 
of  the  parasite  which  produces  it,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  take  up  the  question  of  treatment  in- 
telligently. 

The  Cure. 

The  disease  being  organic,  that  is,  one  in- 
volving the  very  tissues  and  organs  of  society 
through  its  attacks  upon  the  cells  which  make 
up  the  functioning  tissues  of  society — indi- 
vidual human  beings — any  successful  treat- 
ment must  be  organic,  and  salvage  and  safe- 
guard these  individuals.  In  the  past  it  was 
physically  difficult  and  intellectually  impossible 
to  effect  a  genuine  cure.  With  the  present 
knowledge  of  alcohol  itself,  and  the  facilities 


THE  ONLY  CUBE  197 

for  public  education,  we  may  say  that  it  is  now 
possible,  within  a  reasonable  time,  to  counteract 
the  demand  and  shut  off  the  supply.  And  to 
effect  a  cure  we  must  really  reach  the  sources 
of  the  disease  and  both  neutralize  the  motives 
to  drink  and  inhibit  the  activities  of  the  para- 
sitic traffic  which  creates  and  offers  the  supply. 
While  beverage  alcohol  appeals  to  the  motives 
of  elation  and  oblivion,  the  truth  about  this 
deadly,  habit-forming,  degenerating  poison,  in 
its  warnings  to  the  individual  and  to  society, 
appeals  to  the  motives  of  self-preservation, 
evolutionary  development,  protection  of  off- 
spring and  safeguarding  the  species.  In  a 
normal  condition  of  health  these  truth  motives 
are  each  and  all  stronger  and  more  fundamental 
than  the  alcohol  motives,  and  would  more  than 
neutralize  the  alcohol  motives  if  brought  in 
opposition.  We  see,  therefore,  that  the  truth 
about  alcohol,  if  taken  early  to  undegenerate 
peoples,  would  insure  immunity.  But  the 
process  would  have  to  be  repeated  with  each 
succeeding  generation.  In  the  world,  as  we 
find  it  to-day,  alcohol-heredity  and  alcohol- 
poisoning  are  widespread,  rendering  the  alcohol 
motives  disproportionately  strong  and  the  truth 
motives  unnaturally  weak.  These  conditions 
incapacitate  individuals  for  the  effort  necessary 
to  resist  the  power  of  the  habit  even  when  the 
truth  about  alcohol  is  learned.  We  see,  there- 
fore, that  in  the  late  stages  of  the  disease,  such 
as  we  find  throughout  most  of  the  world,  the 
alcohol  motives  are  so  powerful,  and  so  but- 


198    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

tressed  by  the  power  of  habit,  that  the  truth 
motives  alone  are  not  adequate.  Education 
must  needs  be  supplemented  by  the  removal  of 
the  presence  of  the  drug  itself.  Therefore  the 
true  organic  treatment  for  the  world  to-day  must 
consist  of  two  parts,  education,  which  strikes  at 
the  demand,  and  prohibition,  which  strikes  at 
the  supply.  These  two  instrumentalities  must 
go  hand  in  hand.  The  education  instrument  is 
the  more  fundamental  and  has  largely  to  pre- 
cede and  completely  to  follow  the  prohibition 
instrument,  but  let  us  not  forget  for  an  instant 
that  the  prohibition  of  the  traffic  in  alcohol  is 
to-day  an  absolute  necessity  for  the  world. 

In  practice,  successive  campaigns  for  prohibi- 
tion, wisely  directed  on  a  high  plane,  prove  most 
effective  in  advancing  educational  progress; 
and  the  prohibition  aim  will  be  the  sooner 
realized  and  the  more  effective  and  enduring  on 
attainment  according  as  the  educational  work 
has  been  extensive  and  thorough.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  shrewd  minds  directing  the  policies 
of  the  liquor  traffic  know  full  well  the  trans- 
forming power  of  the  truth  about  alcohol  as  it 
spreads  among  the  people,  so  the  great  resources 
of  the  traffic  and  its  political  and  governmental 
connections  are  always  used  to  restrict  or  con- 
trol the  means  of  public  information.  When 
honest  education  begins  the  traffic  does  not 
hesitate  to  put  forward  misleading,  confusing, 
and,  in  many  cases,  absolutely  false  utterances 
regarding  alcohol.  Consequently,  just  as  we 
can    only    realize    effective    prohibition    after 


THE  ONLY  CUEE  199 

patient,  widespread  education,  so  we  can 
achieve  full  education  only  after  winning  pro- 
hibition. Then,  as  untrammelled  education 
advances  public  intelligence  respecting  the 
drug,  the  prohibition  of  traffic  in  it  can  be  more 
effectively  enforced.  Thus  these  two  instru- 
mentalities, operated  jointly,  can  effect  an  ulti- 
mate cure  and  insure  immunity  for  generations 
to  come.  It  must  never  be  forgotten,  however, 
that  both  instrumentalities  will  have  to  be  main- 
tained till  the  end  of  time. 

In  eradicating  yellow  fever  and  malaria  the 
first  step  was  to  inform  the  people  with  the 
truth  about  the  insect  carriers  of  them ;  but  this 
would  not  have  been  effective  had  it  not  been  fol- 
lowed up  by  the  screening  of  houses  and  by  the 
enforced  oiling  or  draining  of  pools  and  swamps, 
and  the  screening  of  tanks,  where  mosquitoes 
breed.  On  the  other  hand,  screening  and  drain- 
ing could  not  have  been  brought  about,  with  the 
expense  and  inconvenience  they  involved,  had 
not  the  people  been  instructed  in  the  truth. 
Furthermore,  coming  generations  will  cease 
screening  and  draining  if  they  fail  to  receive  the 
yellow-fever  truth  from  those  who  precede. 
The  truth  must  be  handed  down  as  one  great 
acquisition  of  the  race  along  with  the  screening 
and  draining.  So  the  truth  about  alcohol  must 
be  passed  on  as  a  priceless  acquisition  of  the 
race  along  with  prohibition  laws. 

The  Educational  Objective. 

The  motives  which  the  truth  respecting  alco- 


200    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

hoi  will  arouse  are  as  universal  as  the  drink 
motives,  and  the  educational  campaign  will  have 
to  be  world-wide. 

With  full  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  co- 
operation of  those  in  authority  and  those  of 
influence  and  power,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind 
that  it  is  necessary  to  seek  and  convince  the 
great  masses  of  individuals  who  are  subjected 
to  the  alcohol  appeal.  There  is  no  royal  road 
to  this  educational  goal.  The  cure  cannot  come 
as  a  gift — not  even  from  the  most  beneficent 
sovereign.  It  must  be  developed  in  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  the  suffering  myriads.  The  only 
adequate  objective  is  to  reach  all  the  individuals 
of  the  world  of  this  generation,  and  to  insure 
that  the  same  truth  shall  reach  all  the  indi- 
viduals in  the  generations  to  come.  Such  a 
campaign  is  the  charter  of  the  integrity  of  the 
race. 

Prohibition  of  the  Traffic. 

As  in  striking  at  the  demand,  through  educa- 
tion, so,  in  striking  at  the  supply,  through  the 
prohibition  of  the  manufacture  and  sale,  the 
objective  must  be  as  comprehensive,  thorough 
and  organic  in  its  nature  as  the  disease  itself. 
Because  of  the  alcohol-impaired  heredity  of  the 
race,  and  humanity's  susceptibility  and  predis- 
position to  alcohol's  appeals  and  mastery,  there 
is  a  sheer  biological  necessity  for  the  universal 
inhibition  of  the  parasitic  traffic  in  the  drug. 
The  vast  financial  inducements  to  exploitation 
of  the  public  with  alcohol  and  the  inherently 


THE  ONLY  CURE  201 

predatory  nature  and  lawlessness  of  the  traffic, 
together  with  the  traffic's  paralyzing  effect  upon 
legal  and  social  restraints  as  time  passes,  make 
it  inevitable  that  with  any  regular  source  of 
supply  anywhere,  the  disease  will  spread  from 
that  infecting  center  throughout  the  whole  or- 
ganism. It  is  vain,  therefore,  to  expect  any 
curative  results  from  license  or  regulation  in 
any  form.  These  only  strengthen  the  traffic  by 
adding  to  it  the  partnership  of  the  regulating 
agency  and  a  respectability  which  makes  all 
classes  of  society  its  easy  prey.  License  and 
regulation  are  the  eager  desiderata  of  the 
traffic  itself,  and  have  been  the  means  by  which 
it  has  accomplished  widespread  fetterings  of 
governments  and  achieved  vast  political  power 
for  its  own  evil  perpetuation.  Prohibition  is 
the  only  reasonable  attitude  for  any  govern- 
ment. Prohibition  must  ultimately  be  com- 
plete in  each  nation.  No  country  can  remain 
part  "  license  "  and  part  "  prohibition."  The 
law  by  which  the  prohibitory  policy  is  decreed 
should  be  in  each  case  the  stable,  organic  law, 
not  subject  to  rapid  fluctuation;  so  that  the 
young  may  have  a  chance  to  grow  up  without  the 
appeal  of  alcohol.  Enforcement  statutes  should 
be  progressively  drastic  and  their  execution 
should  have  the  unrelaxed  vigilance  of  all 
enemies  of  alcohol  throughout  years  and  dec- 
ades and  generations  to  come. 

Even  the  world  itself  cannot  permanently 
endure  half  the  slave  of,  and  half  free  from, 
this  drug. 


202    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  EACE 

Industrial  competition  between  "wet"  and 
"  dry  "  groups  of  nations  will,  if  the  prohibi- 
tion nations  hold  their  status,  at  last  bring 
compelling  economic  forces  favourable  to  pro- 
hibition to  the  fore  throughout  the  balance  of 
the  world. 

The  task  is  gigantic  but  it  can  be  achieved.  It 
constitutes  a  world-endeavour  of  almost  stagger- 
ing magnitude,  when  viewed  without  an  ade- 
quate comprehension  of  how  all  the  scientific, 
social  and  political  progress  of  the  race  has 
fitted  it  for  the  triumphant  prosecution  of  this 
vital  labour. 

Past  Failures  no  Criterion. 

The  depressing  failures  of  ancient  prohibition 
regimes  are  no  criterion  of  the  outcome  of  the 
efforts  now  making.  The  elements  of  a  true 
cure  were  unattainable  then.  Varying  degrees 
of  prohibition  had  their  vicissitudes,  brought 
their  modicums  of  relief  for  a  time,  but  accom- 
plished no  cure  because  there  was  no  possibility 
of  a  stable  attitude  of  either  government  or 
people. 

Throughout  all  the  centuries,  while  the 
fruits  of  alcohol  in  copious  users  were  plainly 
apparent,  its  effects  upon  every  user  were  not 
known.  They  were  never  known  until  now. 
The  possibility  of  fixing  such  truth  in  the  mind 
of  every  human  being  is  of  recent  attainment. 
To-day,  the  poorest  read,  and  print  goes  every- 
where. To-day,  alcohol  is  ousted  from  the 
category   of  medicines,   boon   stimulants  and 


THE  ONLY  CUBE  203 

things  which,  can  be  moderately  used  with 
benefit  and  without  damage.  Its  hoary  decep- 
tions are  unmasked.  It  is  known  as  the  pro- 
genitor of  formerly  unimagined  horrors.  The 
truth  respecting  it  has  become  irresistible  pro- 
vided it  be  known,  and  agencies  for  informing 
any  entire  people  are  available.  To  cap  all, 
those  portions  of  the  human  brain  which  alcohol 
first  disintegrates  are  become  primarily  essen- 
tial to  the  modern  complex  and  socialized  world. 
The  truth,  adequate  means  for  its  dissemina- 
tion, and  the  motives  which  make  that  truth 
paramount  are  now  conjoined. 

Proof  that  the  world-wide  task  can  be  done  is 
found  in  the  extent  to  which  free  peoples,  such 
as  those  of  the  United  States  of  America  and 
the  Dominion  of  Canada,  have  been  convinced 
and  are  making  the  prohibitory  policy  their  free 
and  rigorous  choice.  Their  attitude  on  this 
issue  constitutes  the  greatest  collective  exer- 
cise of  the  will  to  be  sober  the  world  has  ever 
witnessed,  and  the  results  which  are  being 
achieved  under  combined  education  and  pro- 
hibition are  startling  indeed.  In  the  United 
States  these  methods  are  producing  laws  more 
comprehensive  and  drastic  than  any  ever  known 
among  a  free  people,  and  a  public  sentiment 
which  supports  and  maintains  them  with  crush- 
ing majorities.  The  world-wide  cure  can  be 
achieved.  It  merely  waits  on  a  world-wide  de- 
termination to  use  the  only  treatment  which 
will  avail. 

We  are  now,  so  far  as  the  present  civilization 


204    ALCOHOL  AND  THE  HUMAN  RACE 

is  concerned,  facing  this  evil  in  a  struggle  which 
will  be  as  determinative  for  the  modern  world 
as  have  been  the  attitudes  of  other,  elder  civili- 
zations toward  this  drug  to  them.  What  we 
have  achieved  in  a  physical  and  intellectual 
way  will  no  more  permanently  save  us  than 
such  things  saved  them.  We,  too,  can  ebb, 
leaving  as  flotsam  the  things  of  science,  litera- 
ture and  art  which  we  have  achieved  and  by 
which  this  age  would  thereafter  be  known.  We 
can  develop  such  internal  conditions,  through 
widespread  use  of  alcohol,  as  shall  inevitably, 
because  biologically,  result  in  the  disintegration 
of  the  correlated  social  structures  we  have 
reared,  or,  we  can  lead  on  to  the  ultimate  end- 
ing of  these  recurrent  saturations  with  alcohol 
by  which  nation  after  nation  and  civilization 
after  civilization  have  been  aged,  debilitated 
and  made  to  pass. 

All  the  laboured  strivings  of  the  past — the 
sweat  of  bodies,  the  toil  of  brains  and  souls, 
have  culminated  to-day  in  such  an  organized 
relation  between  the  peoples  of  the  world  as  to 
make  spiritually  perceptive  brains  imperative, 
and  in  such  scientific,  intelligence  as  to  yield 
an  adequate  knowledge  respecting  alcohol.  The 
racial  future  to  which  the  present  state  of  world- 
organization  points  cannot  be  achieved  by  a 
maudlin,  alcoholized  humanity.  We  front  an- 
other instance  of  the  ever-recurring  and  divinely 
ordered  situation  in  which  a  possible  "Promised 
Land  "  is  set  before  elect  peoples  of  the  race  and 
they  are   invited  to   enter   on  behalf   of  aU 


THE  ONLY  CUBE  205 

humanity.  This  is  the  opportunity  and  respon- 
sibility which  is  now  set  before  the  intelligent 
nations  of  the  world,  and  the  choice  of  entering, 
or  refusing  to  enter,  will  have  to  be  made.  The 
nations  of  the  past  made  their  choices  without 
access  to  all  the  truth  respecting  this  curse. 
But  the  truth  is  here.  The  forces  fighting  for 
the  integrity  of  the  race  and  for  an  unbroken 
onward  march  of  civilization  now  have  weapons 
which  cannot  be  withstood.  The  disease  is 
fully  known.  The  cure  has  been  tested  and 
proved.  What  the  final  outcome  of  the  struggle 
will  be  we  cannot  doubt,  knowing  the  laws  of 
the  human  mind.  But  whether  the  victory  come 
soon  or  late  depends  upon  the  willingness  of  all 
those  to  whom  the  truth  now  comes  to  act  as 
trustees  of  humanity's  future  and  combine  in 
power  to  effect  the  cure. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


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